


■•Cp ,,^ 



,A'' 



v-^' ^ 



\- 



^^ v^ 



,S:>' -^ 






v^"^- 



H -n. 



Four Months in a Sneak- Box. 



A BOAT VOYAGE OF 260O MILES DOWN THE OHIO 
AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS, AND ALONG 
THE GULF OF MEXICO. 



P,Y 



NATHANIEL H. BISHOP, 

AUTHOR OF "a THOUSAND MILES' WALK ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA," 
AND " VOYAGE OF THE PAl'ER CANOii." 



\ 











^-^0 


379- 






BOSTON: 






EE 


AND 


SHEPARD, 


PUBLISHERS 


. 




NEW YORK: CHARLES T. 


DILLINGHAM. 








1S79. 












^vM. 


e>. 







COPYRIGHT, 

1879, 

By Nathaniel H. Bishop. 



yr;^.^r^ Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 

\ \ "V* '9 Spring Lane. 



>" 



TO THE 

OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES 

OF THE 

LIGHT HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
S^I^is $ook is Jebkateb 

BY ONE WHO HAS LEARNED TO RESPECT THEIR 

HONEST, INTELLIGENT AND EFFICIENT LABORS 

IN SERVING THEIR GOVERNMENT, THEIR 

COUNTRYMEN, AND MANKIND 

GENERALLY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Eighteen months ago the author gave to the 
public his " Voyage of the Paper Canoe : — a 

GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNEY OF 25OO MILES FROM 

Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, during the 

YEARS 1874-5." 

The kind reception by the American press of 
the author's first journey to the great southern sea, 
and its republication in Great Britain and in France 
within so short a time of its appearance in the 
United States, have encouraged him to give the 
public a companion volume, — "Four Months in 
A Sneak-Box," — which is a relation of the expe- 
riences of a second cruise to the Gulf of Mexico, 
but by a different route from that followed in the 
"Voyage of the Paper Canoe." This time the 
author procured one of the smallest and most com- 
fortable of boats — a purely American model, devel- 
oped by the bay-men of the New Jersey coast of the 
United States, and recently introduced to the gunning 

V 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

fraternity as the Barnegat Sneak-Box. This curi- 
ous and stanch little craft, though only twelve feet 
in length, proved a most comfortable and serviceable 
home while the author rowed in it more than 2600 
miles down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and 
along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, until he reached 
the goal of his voyage — the mouth of the wild 
Suwanee River — which was the terminus of his 
"Voyage of the Paper Canoe." 

The maps which illustrate the contours of the 
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, like those in the other 
volume, are the most reliable ever given to the . 
public, having been drawn and engraved, by con- 
tract for the work, by the United States Coast 
and Geodetic Survey Bureau. 

Lake George, Warren Co., 

New York State, 

September ist, 1879. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE. 

Canoes for Shallow Streams and FREquENX Portages. — 
Sneak-boxes for Deep Watercourses. — History and 
Description of the Barnegat Sneak-box. — A Walk 
DOWN Eel Street to Manahawken Marshes. — Honest 
George the Boat-builder. — The Building of the Sneak- 
box "Centennial Republic." — Its Transportation to 
THE Ohio River i 



CHAPTER n. 

SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER. 

Description of the Monongahela and Alleghany Riv- 
ers. — The Ohio River. — Explorations of Cavelier de 
LA Salle. — Names given by Ancient Cartographers 
TO the Ohio. — Routes of the Aborigines from the 
Great Lakes to the Ohio River 19 

CHAPTER HI. 

FROM PITTSBURGH TO BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND. 

The Start for the Gulf. — Caught in the Ice Raft. — 
Camping on the Ohio. — The Grave Creek Mound. — An 
Indian Sepulchre. — Blennerhasset's Island. — Aaron 
Burr's Conspiracy. — A Ruined Family 29 

vii 



VIU CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

FROM BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND TO CINCINNATI. 

River Camps. — The Shanty-Boats and River Migrants. — 
Various Experiences. — Arrival at Cincinnati. — The 
Sneak-box frozen up in Pleasant Run. — A Tailor's 
Family. — A Night under a German Coverlet 55 

CHAPTER V. 

FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Cincinnati. — Music and Pork in Porkopolis. — The Big 
Bone Lick of Fossil Elephants. — Colonel Croghan's 
Visit to the Lick. — Portage around the "Falls" at 
Louisville, Kentucky. — Stuck in the INIud. — The First 
Steamboat of the West. — Victor Hugo on the Situa- 
tion. — A Freebooter's Dex. — Whooping and Sand-hill 
Cranes. — The Sneak-box enters the Mississippi . . . 79 

CHAPTER VI. 
DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

Leave Cairo, Illinois. — The Longest River in the 
World.— Book Geography and Boat Geography.— Chick- 
asaw Bluff. — Meeting with the Parakeets. — Fort 
Donaldson. — EARTHquAKEs and Lakes. — Weird Beauty 
OF Reelfoot Lake. — Joe Eckel's Bar. — Shanty-boat 
Cooking, — Fort Pillow. — Memphis. — A Negro Jus- 
tice. — "De Common Law ob Mississippi" 115 

CHAPTER VII. 

DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS. 

A Flatboat bound for Texas. — A Flat-man on River 
Physics. — Adrift and Asleep. — Seeing the Earth's 
Little Moon. — Vicksburgh. — Jefferson Davis's Cot- 



CONTENTS. IX 

TON PlAXTATION, AND ITS NeGRO OwNER. — DyING IN III3 

Boat. — How to civilize Chinese. — A Swim of One Hun- 
dred and Twenty Miles ON the Mississippi. — Twenty- 
four Hours in the Water. — Arrival in the Crescent 
City i ....;...........;........ . 150 

CHAPTER VIII. 

NEW ORLEANS. 

Bienville and the City of the Past. — French and Span- 
ish Rule in the New World. — Louisiana ceded to the 
United States. — Captain Eads and his Jetties. — 
Transportations of Cereals to Europe. — Charles 
Morgan. — Creole Types of Citizens. — Levees and 
Crawfish. — Drainage of the City into Lake Pont- 
chartrain i95 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO. 

Leave New Orleans. — The Roughs at Work. — De- 
tained AT New Basin. — Saddles introduces Himself. — 
Camping on Lake Pontchartrain. — The Light-House 
of Point aux Herbes. — The Rigolets. — jNIarshes and 
jMosqyiTOES. — Lmportant Use of the MosqyiTO and 
Blow-fly. — St. Joseph's Light. — An Exciting Pull 
TO Bay St. Louis. — A Light-keeper lost in the Sea. — 
Battle of the Sharks. — Biloxi. — The Water-cress 
Garden. — Little Jennie 209 

CHAPTER X. 

FROM BILOXI TO CAPE SAN BLAS. 

Points on the Gulf Coast. — Mobile Bay. — The Hermit 
of Dauphine Island. — Bon Secours Bay. — A Cracker's 
Daughters. — The Portage to the Perdido.— The Port- 
age from the Perdido to Big Lagoon. — Pensacola 



: CONTENTS. 

Bay. — Santa Rosa Sound. — A New London Fisher- 
man. — Catching the Pompano. — A Negro Preacher 
AND White Sinners. — A Day and a Night with a Mur- 
derer. — St. Andrew's Sound. — Arrival at Cape San 
Blas 240 



CHAPTER XI. 
FROM CAPE SAN BLAS TO ST. MARKS. 

A Portage across Cape San Blas. — The Cow-Hunters. — 
A Visit to the Light-House. — Once more on the Sea. — 
Portage into St. Vincent Sound. — Apalachicola. — 
St. George's Sound and Ocklockony River. — Arrival 
AT St. Marks. — The Negro Postmaster. — A Philan- 
thropist and his Neighbors. — A Continuous and Pro- 
tected Water- Way from the Mississippi River to the 
Atlantic Coast 27? 

CHAPTER Xn. 
FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER. 

Along the Coast. — Saddles breaks down. -*-A Refuge 
WITH the Fishermen. — Camp in the Palm Forest. — 
Parting with Saddles. — Our Neighbor the Alliga- 
tor. — Discovery of the True Crocodile in Florida. — 
The Devil's Wood-pile. — Deadman's Bay. — Bowlegs 
Point. — The Coast Survey Camp. — A Day aboard the 
"Ready." — The Suwanee River. — The End 2S8 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Drawn by 



F. T. Merrill. Engraved by John Andrew & Son. 



• PAGE 

Shanty-Boats. -THE Champion Floaters of the 

West, Frontispiece, 

Diagram of Parts of Boat, ^4 

^ ^ 28 

Indian in Canoe, 

The Start. — Head of the Ohio River, 3' 

Indian Mound at Moundsville, West Virginia, ... 54 

A Night under a German Coverlet, 7^ 

Popular Idea of the Nesting of Cranes, m 

Stern-wheel Western Tow-Boat pushing Flatboats, 114 

Meeting with the Parakeets, ^25 

Dying in his Boat, ^'^'^ 

BOYTON DESCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI, ^^7 

New Orleans Roughs amusing Themselves, . . . .214 
Arrival at the Gulf of Mexico. — Camp Mosquito, . 239 

The Portage across Crooked Island, 269 

Saddles breaks down, ^9^ 

Parting with Saddles, 3° 

Last Night on the Gulf of Mexico, 322 

xi 



LIST OF MAPS 

DRAWN AND ENGRAVED AT THE 

UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY BUREAU, 

TO ILLUSTRATE N. H. BISHOP'S BOAT VOYAGES. 



PAGE 

I. General Map of Routes followed by the Au- 
thor DURING TWO Voyages made to the Gulf 
of Mexico, in the Years i 874-^6, . . Opposite i 



GUIDE MAPS OF ROUTE FOLLOWED 

in duck-boat "centennial republic," along the 
gulf of mexico, in 1 876. 

2. From New Orleans, Louisiana, to Mobile Bay, 

Alabama, Opposite 209 

3. From Mobile Bay, Alabama, to Cape San Blas, 

Florida, Opposite 247 

4. From Cape San Blas, Florida, to Cedar Keys, 

Florida, Opposite 273 



MAP SHOWING RIVER AND PORTAGE ROUTES 

across florida from the gulf of mexico 
to the atlantic ocean. 

5. Route followed by the Author in Paper Canoe 

"Maria Theresa," in 1875, . • • • Opposite 319 

xii 



i 



A i«AM JO 



% 



'!>-/;. 



MAP OF ROUTES 

FOL LOWtD BY N.H. BISHOP 

IN PAPF.R CANOE'MARIA TMERESA" 

AKD DUCK BO AT "centennial REPUBLIC" 



1874-1876 













SitUiitf -Mill 



o I. 



C'pyru,l,t .1878. hv i.v. A .SAepaJ-rl 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



-=%^- 



-^^ 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE. 

CANOES FOR SHALLOW STREAMS AND FREQUENT PORTAGES.— 
SNEAK-BOXES FOR DEEP WATERCOURSES. — HISTORY AND DE- 
SCRIPTION OF THE BARNEGAT SNEAK-BOX. — A WALK DOWN 
EEL STREET TO MANAHAWKEN MARSHES. — HONEST GEORGE, 
THE BOAT-BUILDER. — THE BUILDING OF THE SNEAK-BOX "CEN- 
TENNIAL REPUBLIC." — ITS TRANSPORTATION TO THE OHIO 
RIVER. 



T 



HE reader who patiently followed the au- 
thor in his long "Voyage of the Paper 
Canoe," from the high latitude of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence to the warmer regions of the 
Gulf of Mexico, may desire to know the rea- 
sons which impelled the canoeist to exchange 
his light, graceful, and swift paper craft for 
the comical-looking but more commodious and 
comfortable Barnegat sneak-box, or duck-boat. 

Having navigated more than eight thousand 
miles in sail-boats, row-boats, and canoes, upon 
the fresh and salt watercourses of the North 
American continent (usually without a compan- 



I I 



2 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ion), a hard-earned experience has taught me 
that while the light, frail canoe is indispensable 
for exploring shallow streams, for shooting rap- 
ids, and for making long portages from one 
watercourse to another, the deeper and more 
continuous water-ways may be more comfortably 
traversed in a stronger and heavier boat, which 
offers many of the advantages of a portable 
home. 

To find such a boat — one that possessed many 
desirable points in a small hull — had been with 
me a study of years. I commenced to search for 
it in my boyhood — twenty-five years ago ; and 
though I have carefully examined numerous 
small boats while travelling in seven foreign 
countries, and have studied the models of min- 
iature craft in museums, and at exhibitions of 
marine architecture, I failed to discover the 
object of my desire, until, on the sea-shore of 
New Jersey, I saw for the first time what is 
known among gunners as the Barnegat sneak- 
box. 

Having owned, and thoroughly tested in the 
waters of Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor bays, 
five of these boats, I became convinced that their 
claims for the good-will of the boating fraternity 
had no% been over-estimated; so when I planned 
my second voyage from northern America to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and selected the great water- 
courses of the west and south (the Ohio and Mis- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 3 

sissippi rivers) as the route to be explored and 
studied, I chose the Barnegat sneak-box as the 
most comfortable model combined with other 
advantages for a voyager's use. The sneak-box 
offered ample stowage capacit}^, while canoes 
built to hold one person were not large enough 
to carry the amount of baggage necessary for the 
voyage; for I was to avoid hotels and towns, to 
live in my boat day and night, to carry an ample 
stock of provisions, and to travel in as comfort- 
able a manner as possible. In fact, I adopted a 
very home-like boat, which, though only twelve 
feet long, four feet wide, and thirteen inches 
deep, was strong, stiff, dry, and safe; a craft that 
could be sailed or rowed, as wind, weather, or 
inclination might dictate, — the weight of which 
hardly exceeded two hundred pounds, — and 
could be conveniently transported from one 
stream to another in an ordinary wagon. 

A Nautilus, or any improved type of canoe, 
would have been lighter and more easily trans- 
ported, and could have been paddled at a higher 
speed with the same effort expended in rowing 
the heavier sneak-box; but the canoe did not 
offer the peculiar advantages of comfort and 
freedom of bodily motion possessed by its unique 
fellow-craft. Experienced canoeists agree that a 
canoe of fourteen feet in length, which weighs 
only seventy pounds, if built of wood, bark, can- 
vas, or paper, when out of the water and resting 



4 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

upon the ground, or even when bedded on some 
soft material, like grass or rushes, cannot support 
the sleeping weight of the canoeist for many suc- 
cessive nights without becoming strained. 

Light indeed must be the weight and slender 
and elastic the form of the man who can sleep 
many nights comfortably in a seventy-pound 
canoe without injuring it. Cedar canoes, after 
being subjected to such use for some time, gen- 
erally become leaky; so, to avoid this disaster, the 
canoeist, when threatened with wet weather, is 
forced to the disagreeable task of troubling some 
private householder for a shelter, or run the risk 
"of injuring his boat by packing himself away in 
its narrow, coffin-like quarters and dreaming 
that he is a sardine, while his restless weight is 
every moment straining his delicate canoe, and 
visions of future leaks arise to disturb his tran- 
quillity. 

The one great advantage possessed by a canoe 
is its lightness. Canoeists dwell upon the impor- 
tance of the LIGHT WEIGHT of their canoes, and 
the ease with which they can be carried. If the 
canoeist is to sleep in his delicate craft w^hile 
making a long journey, she must be made much 
heavier than the perfected models now in use in 
this country, many of which are under seventy- 
five pounds' weight. This additional weight is 
at once fatal to speed, and becomes burdensome 
when the canoeist is forced to carry his canoe 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 5 

upon his OWN shoulders over a portage. A 
sneak-box built to carry one person weighs 
about three times as much as a well-built cedar 
canoe. 

This remarkable little boat has a history which 
does not reach very far back into the present 
century. With the assistance of Mr. William 
Errickson of Barnegat, and Dr. William P. 
Haywood of West Creek, Ocean County, New 
Jersey, I have been able to rescue from obliv- 
ion and bring to the light of day a correct his- 
tory of the Barnegat sneak-box. 

Captain Hazelton Seaman, of West Creek vil- 
lage, New Jersey, a boat-builder and an expert 
shooter of wild-fowl, about the year 1836, con- 
ceived the idea of constructins: for his own use 
a low-decked boat, or gunning-punt, in w^hich, 
when its deck was covered with sedge, he 
could secrete himself from the wild-fowl while 
gunning in Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor 
bays. 

It Avas important that the boat should be suffi- 
ciently light to enable a single sportsman to pull 
her from the water on to the low points of the 
bay shores. During the winter months, when 
the great marshes were at times incrusted with 
snow, and the shallow creeks covered with ice, — 
obstacles which must be crossed to reach the 
open waters of the sound, — it would be neces- 
sary to use her as a sled, to effect which end a 



6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

pair of light oaken strips were screwed to the 
bottom of the sneak-box, when she could be 
easily pushed by the gunner, and the transporta- 
tion of the oars, sail, blankets, guns, ammunition, 
and provisions (all of which stowed under the 
hatch and locked up as snugly as if in a strong 
chest) became a very simple matter. While 
secreted in his boat, on the watch for fowl, with 
his craft hidden by a covering of grass or sedge, 
the gunner could approach within shooting-dis- 
tance of a flock of unsuspicious ducks; and this 
being done in a sneaking manner (though Mro 
Seaman named the result of his first effort the 
"Devil's Coffin"), the bay-men gave her the so- 
briquet of "sneak-box"; and this name she 
has retained to the present day. 

Since Captain Seaman built his " Devil's Cof- 
fin," forty years ago, the model has been improved 
by various builders, until it is believed that it has 
almost attained perfection. The boat has no 
sheer, and sets low in the water. This lack of 
sheer is supplied by a light canvas apron which 
is tacked to the deck, and presents, when stretched 
upward by a stick two feet in length, a convex 
surface to a head sea. The water which breaks 
upon the deck, forward of the cockpit, is turned 
off* at the sides of the boat in almost the same 
manner as a snow-plough clears a railroad track 
of snow. The apron also protects the head and 
.shoulders of the rower from cold head winds. 



# 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 7 

The first sneak-box built by Captain Seaman 
had a piece of canvas stretched upon an oaken 
hoop, so fastened to the deck that when a head 
sea struck the bow, the hoop and canvas were 
forced upward so as to throw the M^ater off its 
sides, thus effectually preventing its ingress into 
the hold of the craft. The improved apron origi- 
nated with jMr. John Crammer, Jr., a short time 
after Captain Seaman built the first sneak-box. 
The second sneak-box was constructed by Mr. 
Crammer; and afterwards Mr. Samuel Ferine, 
an old and much respected bay-man, of Barne- 
gat, built the third one. The last two men have 
finished their voyage of life, but ^' Uncle Haze," — 
as he is familiarly called by his many admirers, — 
the originator of the tiny craft which may well be 
called imdtimi in -parvo^ and which carried me, 
its single occupant, safely and comfortably twenty- 
six hundred miles, from Pittsburgh to Cedar Keys, 
still lives at West Creek, builds yachts as well 
as he does sneak-boxes, and puts to the blush 
3'ounger gunners by the energy displayed and 
success attained in the vigorous pursuit of wild- 
fowl shooting in the bays which fringe the coast 
of Ocean County, New Jersey. 

A few years since, this ingenious man invented 
an improvement on the marine life-saving car, 
which has been adopted by the United States 
government; and during the year 1875 ^^ con- 
structed a new ducking-punt w^ith a low paddle- 



8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

wheel at its stern, for the purpose of more easily 
and secretly approaching flocks of wild-fowl. 

The peculiar advantages of the sneak-box 
were known to but few of the hunting and 
shooting fraternit}', and, with the exception of 
an occasional visitor, were used only by the 
oystermen, fishermen, and wild-fowl shooters of 
Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor bays, until the 
New Jersey Southern Railroad and its connect- 
ing branches penetrated to the eastern shores of 
New Jersey, w^hen educated amateur sportsmen 
from the cities quickly recognized in the little 
gunning-punt all they had long desired to com- 
bine in one small boat. 

Mr. Charles Hallock, in his paper the " Forest 
and Stream," of April 23, 1S74, gave drawings 
and a description of the sneak-box, and fairly 
presented its claims to public favor. " 

The sneak-box is not a monopoly of any par- 
ticular builder, but it requires peculiar talent to 
build one, — the kind of talent which enables one 
man to cut out a perfect axe-handle, while the 
master-carpenter finds it difficult to accomplish 
the same thing. The best yacht-builders in 
Ocean County generally fail in modelling a 
sneak-box, while many second-rate mechanics 
along the shore, who could not possibly con- 
struct a yacht that would sail well, can make a 
perfect sneak-box, or gunning-skiff. All this 
may be accounted for by recognizing the fact 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 9 

that the water-lines of the sneak-box are peculiar, 
and differ materially from those of row-boats, sail- 
boats, and yachts. Having a spoon-shaped bot- 
tom and bow^, the sneak-box moves rather over 
the water than through it, and this peculiarity, 
together with its broad beam, gives the boat 
such stiffness that two persons may stand up- 
right in her while she is moving through the 
water, and troll their lines while fishing, or dis- 
charge their guns, without careening the boat; a 
valuable advantage not possessed by our best 
cruising canoes. 

The boat sails well on the wind, though hard 
to pull against a strong head sea. A fin-shaped 
centre-board takes the place of a keel. It can 
be quickly removed from the trunk, or centre- 
board w^ell, and stored under the deck. The 
flatness of her floor permits the sneak-box to 
run in very shallow w^ater while being rowed or 
when sailinof before the wind without the centre- 
board. Some of these boats, carrying a weight 
of three hundred pounds, will float in four to six 
inches of water. 

The favorite material for boat-building in the 
United States is white cedar (^Oupressiis thyoi- 
des)^ which grows in dense forests in the swamps 
along the coast of New Jersey, as well as in other 
parts of North America. The wood is both white 
and brown, soft, fine-grained, and very light and 
durable. No wood used in boat-building can 



lO FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

compare with the white cedar in resisting the 
changes from a wet to a dry state, and vice ve7^sa. 
The tree grows tall and straight. The lower 
part of the trunk with the diverging roots fur- 
nish knee timbers and carlines for the sneak-box. 
The ribs or timbers, and the carlines, are usually 
ij X i^ inches in dimension, and are placed 
about ten inches apart. The frame above and 
below is covered with half-inch cedar sheathing, 
which is not less than six inches in width. The 
boat is strong enough to support a heavy man 
upon its deck, and when w^ell built will rank 
next to the seamless paper boats of Mr. Waters 
of Troy, and the seamless wooden canoes of 
Messrs. Herald, Gordon & Stephenson, of the 
province of Ontario, Canada, in freedom from 
leakage. 

During a cruise of twenty-six hundred miles 
not one drop of water leaked through the seams 
of the Centennial Republic. Her under planking 
was nicely joined, and the seams calked with 
cotton wicking, and afterwards filled with white- 
lead paint and putty. The deck planks, of seven 
inches width, were not joined, but were tongued 
and grooved, the tongues and grooves being well 
covered with a thick coat of white-lead paint. 

The item of cost is another thing to be consid- 
ered in regard to this boat. The usual cost of a 
first-class canoe of seventy pounds' weight, built 
after the model of the Rob Roy or Nautilus, with 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. II 

all its belongings, is about one hundred and 
twenty-five dollars; and these figures deter many 
a young man fi-om enjoying the ennobling and 
healthfiil exercise of canoeing. A first-class 
sneak-box, with spars, sail, oars, anchor, &c., 
can be obtained for sevent3-five dollars, and if 
several were ordered by a club they could prob- 
ably be bought for sixty-five dollars each. The 
price of a sneak-box, as ordinarily built in 
Ocean County, New Jersey, is about forty dol- 
lars. The Centennial Republic cost about 
seventy-five dollars, and a city boat-builder 
would not duplicate her for less than one hun- 
dred and twenty-five dollars. The builders of 
the sneak-boxes have not yet acquired the art 
of overcharging their customers; they do not 
expect to receive more than one dollar and fifty 
cents or two dollars per day for their labor; and 
some of them are even so unwise as to risk their 
reputation by offering to furnish these boats for 
twenty-five dollars each. Such a craft, after a 
little hard usage, would leak as badly as most 
cedar canoes, and would be totally unfit for the 
trials of a long cruise. 

The diagram o-iven of the Centennial Republic 
will enable the reader of aquatic proclivities to 
understand the general principles upon which 
these boats are built. As they should be rated 
as third-class freight on railroads, it is more 
economical for the amateur to purchase a first- 



12 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

class boat at Barnegat, Manahawkcn, or West 
Creek, in Ocean County, New Jerse}-, along the 
Tuckerton Railroad, than to have a workman 
elsewhere, and one unacquainted with this pe- 
culiar model, experiment upon its construction 
at the purchaser's cost, and perhaps loss. 

One bright morning, in the early part of the 
fall of 1875, I trudged on foot down one of the 
level roads which lead from the villagfe of Mana- 
hawken through the swamps to the edge of the 
extensive salt marshes that frino^e the shores of 
the bay. This road bore the euphonious name 
of Eel Street^ — so named by the boys of the 
town. When about half-way from its end, I 
turned off to the right, and followed a wooded 
lane to the house of an honest surf-man. Captain 
George Bogart, who had recently left his old 
home on the beach, beside the restless waves of 
the Atlantic, and had resumed his avocation as a 
sneak-box builder. 

The house and its small fields of low, arable 
land were environed on three sides by dense 
cedar and whortleberry swamps, but on the 
eastern boundary of the farm the broad salt 
marshes opened to the view, and beyond their 
limit were the salt waters of the bay, which were 
shut in from the ocean by a long, narrow, sandy 
island, known to the fishermen and wreckers as 
Long Beach, — the low, white sand-dunes of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 3 

which were lifted above the horizon, and seemed 
suspended in the air as by a mirage. Across 
the wide, savanna-like plains came in gentle 
breezes the tonic breath of the sea, while hun- 
dreds, aye, thousands of mosquitoes settled qui- 
etly upon me, and quickly presented their bills. 

In this sequestered nook, far from the bustle 
of the town, I found " Honest George," so much 
occupied in the construction of a sneak-box, 
under the shade of spreading willows, as to be 
wholly unconscious of the presence of the myr- 
iads of phlebotomists which covered every avail- 
able inch of his person exposed to their attacks. 
The appropriate surroundings of a surf-man's 
house were here, scattered on every side in 
delightful confusion. There wxre piles of old 
rigging, iron bolts and rings, tarred parcelling, 
and cabin-doors, — in fact, all the spoils that a 
treacherous sea had thrown upon the beach; a 
sea so disastrous to many, but so friendly to the 
Barnegat wrecker, — who, by the way, is not so 
black a character as Mistress Rumor paints him. 
A tar-like odor everywhere prevailed, and I won- 
dered, while breathing this wholesome air, why 
this surf-man of daring and renown had left his 
proper place upon the beach near the life-saving 
station, where his valuable experience, brave 
heart, and strong, brawny arms were needed to 
rescue from the ocean's grasp the poor victims 
of misfortune whose dead bodies are washed 



14 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

upon the hard strand of the Jersey shores every 
year from the wrecks of the many vessels which 
pound out their existence upon the dreaded 
coast of Barnegat? A question easily answered, 
— political preferment. His place had been 
tilled by a man who had never pulled an oar in 
the surf, but had followed the occupation of a 
tradesman. 

Thus Honest George, rejected by " the ser- 
vice," had left the beach, and crossing the wide 
bays to the main land, had taken up his abode 
under the willows by the marshes, but not too far 
from his natural element, for he could even now, 
while he hammered away on his sneak-boxes, 
hear the ceaseless moaning of the sea. 

A verbal contract was soon made, and George 
agreed to build me for twenty-five dollars the 
best boat that had ever left his shop; he to do all 
the w^ork upon the hull and spars, w^hile the fu- 
ture owner was to supply all the materials at his 
own cost. The oars and sail were not included 
in the contract, but ^yere made by other parties. 
In November, when I settled all the bills of ' 
construction, cost of materials, oar-locks, oars, 
spars, sail, anchor, &c., the sum-total did not 
exceed seventy-five dollars; and when the ac- 
counts of more than twenty boats and canoes 
built for me had been looked over, I concluded 
that the little craft, constructed by the surf-man, 
was, for the amount it cost and the advantages 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 5 

it o-ave me, the best investment I had ever made 
in things that float upon the water. Without a 
name painted upon her hull, and, like the " Maria 
Theresa " paper canoe, without a flag to decorate 
her, but with spars, sail, oars,- rudder, anchor, 
cushions, blankets, cooking-kit, and double- 
barrelled gun, with ammunition securely locked 
under the hatch, the Centennial Republic, my 
future travelling companion, was^ ready by the 
middle of November for the descent of the west- 
ern rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Captain George Bogart, attentive to the last to 
his pet craft, atTectionately sewed her up in a 
covering of burlap, to protect her smooth surface 
from scratches during the transit over railroads. 
The two light oaken strips, which had been 
screwed to the bottom of the boat, kept the hull 
secure from injury by contact with nails, bolt- 
heads, &c., while she was being carried in the 
freight-cars of the Tuckerton, New Jersey, South- 
ern and Pennsylvania railroads to Philadelphia, 
where she was delivered to the freight agent of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad, to be sent to Pitts- 
buro-h, at the head of the Ohio River. 

Here I must speak of a subject full of interest 
to all owners of boats, hoping that when our 
large corporations have their attention drawn 
to the fact they will make some provision for it. 
There appears to be no fixed freighting tarifl* 
established for boats, and the aquatic tourist is 



l6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

placed at the mercy of agents who too frequently, 
in their zeal for the interests of their employers, 
heavily tax the owner of the craft. The agent 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Philadelphia was 
sorely puzzled to know what to charge for a 
BOAT. He had loaded thousands of cars for 
Pittsburgh, but could lind only one precedent to 
guide him. " We took a boat once to Pitts- 
burgh," he said, " for twenty-five dollars, and 
yours should be charged the same." The ship- 
ping-clerk of a mercantile house, who had over- 
heard the conversation, mterrupted the agent 
with a loud laugh. " A charge of twenty-five 
dollars freight on a little thing like that! Why, 

MAN, THAT SUM IS NEARLY HALF HER VALUE ! 

How LARGE was the boat you shipped last fall 
to Pittsburgh for twenty-five dollars?" ^^ Oh, 
about twice the size of this one," answered the 
agent; "but, size or no size, a boat's a boat, and 
we handle so few of them that we have no special 
tariff on them." "But," said the clerk, "you can 
easily and honestly establish a tariff if 3'ou will 
treat a boat as you do all other freight of the 
same class. Now, for instance, how do common 
boats rank, as first or third class freight? " 
"Third class, I should think," slowly responded 
the agent. " Ease your conscience, my friend," 
continued the clerk, " by weighing the boat, and 
charging the usual tariff rate for third class 
freight." 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I? 

The boat, with its cargo still locked up inside, 
was put upon the scales, and the total weight 
was three hundred and ten pounds, for which a 
charcre of seventy-two cents per one hundred 
pouii'ds was made, and the boat placed on some 
barrels in a car. Thus did the common-sense 
and business-like arrangement of the friendly 
clerk secure for me the freight charge of two 
dollars and twenty-three cents, instead of twenty- 
five dollars, on a little boat for its carriage three 
hundred and fifty-three miles to Pittsburgh, and 
saved me not only from a pecuniary loss, but 
also from the uncomfortable feeling of being im- 
posed upon. 

In these days of canoe and boat voyages, when 
portages by rail are a necessary evil, a fixed 
tariff for such freight would save dollars and 
tempers, and some action in the matter is anx- 
iously looked for by all interested parties. 

I gave a parting look at my little craft snugly 
ensconced upon the top of a pile of barrels, and 
smiled as I turned away, thinking how precious 
she had already become to me, and philosophiz- 
ing upon the strange genus, man, who could so 
retdily twine his affections about an inanimate 
object. Upon consideration, it did not seem so 
strange a thing, however, for did not this boat rep- 
resent the workof brains and hands for a generation 
past? Was it not the result of the study and hard- 
earned experiences of many men for many years. 



1 8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Men whose humble lives had been spent along 
the rough coast in daily struggles with the storms 
of ocean and of life? Many of them now slept 
in obscure graves, some in the deep sea, others 
under the tender, green turf; but here was the 
concentration of their ideas, the ultimatum of 
their labors, and I inwardly resolved, that, since 
to me was given the enjoyment, to them should 
be the honor, and that it should be through no 
fault of her captain if the Centennial Republic 
did not before many months reach her far-dis- 
tant point of destination, twenty-six hundred 
miles away, on the white strands of the Gulf of 
Mexico. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 9 



CHAPTER II. 

SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER. 

DESCRTPTIOX OF THE MOXONGAHELA AND ALLEGHANY RIVERS. — 
THE OHIO RIVER. — EXPLORATIONS OF CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. — 
NAMES GIVEN BY ANCIENT CARTOGRAPHERS TO THE OHIO. — 
ROUTES OF THE ABORIGINES FROM THE GREAT LAKES TO THE 
OHIO RIVER. 

THE southerly branch of the Ohio River, and 
one of its chief affluents, is made by the 
union of the West Fork and Tygart Valley riv- 
ers, in the county of Marion, state of Virginia, 
the united waters of which flow north into Penn- 
sylvania as the Monongahela River, and is there 
joined by the Cheat River, its principal trib- 
utary. The Monongahela unites with the Alle- 
ghany to form the Ohio, at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 
vania. The length of the Monongahela, without 
computing that of its tributaries, is about one 
hundred and fifty miles; but if we include its 
eastern fork, the Tygart Valley River, which 
flows from Randolph County, Virginia, the whole 
length of this tributary of the Ohio may exceed 
three hundred miles. It has a width at its union 
with the Alleghany of nearly one-fourth of a 
mile, and a depth of water sufficient for large 



20 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

steamboats to ascend sixty miles, to Brownsville, 
Pennsylvania, while light-draught vessels can 
reach its head, at Fairmont, Virginia. 

The northern branch of the Ohio, known as 
the Alleghany River, has a length of four hun- 
dred miles, and its source is in the county of 
Potter, in northern Pennsylvania. It takes a 
very circuitous course through a portion of New 
York state, and re-enters Pennsylvania flowing 
through a hilly region, and at the flourishing 
city of Pittsburgh mingles its waters with its 
southern sister, the Monongahela. 

The region traversed by the Alleghany is wild 
and mountainous, rich in pine forests, coal, and 
petroleum oil; and the extraction from its rocky 
beds of the last-narned article is so enormous in 
quantity, that at the present time more than four 
million barrels of oil are aw^aiting shipment in 
the oil districts of Pennsylvania. The smaller 
steamboats can ascend the river to Olean, about 
two hundred and fifty miles above Pittsburgh. 
At Olean, the river has a breadth of twenty rods. 

In consequence of its high latitude, the clear 
waters of the Alleghany usually freeze over 
by the 25th of December, after having trans- 
ported upon its current the season's work, from 
the numerous saw-mills of the great wilderness 
through which it flows, in the form of rafts con- 
sisting of two hundred million feet of excellent 
lumber. 



/ 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 2 1 

The Ohio River has a width of about half a 
mile below Pittsburgh, and this is its medial 
breadth along its winding course to its mouth 
at Cairo; but in places it narrows to less than 
twenty-tive hundred feet, while it frequently 
widens to more than a mile. A geographical 
writer says, that, " In tracing the Ohio to its 
source, we must regard the Alleghany as its 
proper continuation. A boat may start with suf- 
ficient water within seven miles of Lake Erie, in 
sight sometimes of the sails which whiten the 
approach to the harbor of Buffalo, and float 
securely down the Conewango, or Cassadaga, 
to the Alleghany, down the Alleghany to the 
Ohio, and thence uninterruptedly to the Gulf of 
Mexico." 

There are grave reasons for doubting that part 
of the statement which refers to a boat starting 
from a point within seven miles of Lake Erie. 
It is to be hoped that some member of the New 
York Canoe Club will explore the route men- 
tioned, and give the results of his investigations 
to the public. He would need a canoe light 
enough to be easily carried upon the shoulders 
of one man, with the aid of the canoeist's indis- 
pensable assistant — the canoe-yoke. 

It will be seen that the Ohio with its afHuents 
drains an immense extent of country composed 
of portions of seven large states of the Union, 
rich in agricultural wealth, in timber, iron, coal, 



2 2 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

petroleum, salt, clays, and building-stone. The 
rainfall of the Ohio Valley is so great as to give 
the river a mean discharge at its mouth (accord- 
ing to the report of the United States government 
^engineers) of one hundred and fifty-eight thou- 
sand cubic feet per second. This is the drainage 
of an area embracinsr two hundred and fourteen 
thousand square miles. 

The head of the Ohio River, at Pittsburgh, has 
an elevation of eleven hundred and fifty feet above 
the sea, while in the long descent to its mouth 
there is a gradual fiiU of only four hundred feet; 
hence its current, excepting during the seasons 
of freshets, is more gentle and uniform than that 
of any other North American river of equal 
length. During half the year the depth of water 
is suflScient to float steamboats of the largest 
class alono^ its entire len^^th. Between the low- 
est stage of water, in the month of September, 
and the highest, in March, there is sometimes a 
range of fifty feet in depth. The spring freshets 
in the tributaries will cause the waters of the 
o^reat river to rise twelve feet in twelve hours. 
Durino^ the season of low water the current of 
the Ohio is so slow, as flatboat-men have in- 
formed me, that their boats are carried by the 
flow of the stream only ten miles in a day. The 
most shallow portion of the river is between 
Troy and Evansville. Troy is twelve miles be- 
low the historic Blennerhasset's Island, which lies 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 23 

between the states of Ohio and Virginia. Here 
the water sometimes shoals to a depth of only 

two feet. 

Robert Cavelier de la Salle is credited with 
having made the discovery of the Ohio River. 
From the St. Lawrence country he went to On- 
ondaga, and reaching a tributary of the Ohio 
River, he descended the great stream to the 
"Falls," at Louisville, Kentucky. His men hav- 
inc^ deserted him, he returned alone to Lake Erie. 
This exploration of the Ohio was made in the 
winter of 1669-70, or in the following spring. 

The director of the Depot des Cartes ot the 
Marine and Colonies, at Paris, in 1872 possessed 
a rich mass of historical documents, the collec- 
tion of which had covered thirty years of his life. 
This material related chiefly to the French rule 
in North America, and its owner had offered 
to dispose of it to the French government on 
condition that the entire collection should be 
published. The French government was, how- 
ever, only willing to publish parts of the whole, 
and the director retained possession of his prop- 
erty. Through the efforts of Mr. Francis Park- 
man, the truthful American historian, supported 
by friends, an appropriation was made by Con- 
gress, in 1873, for the purchase and publication 
of this valuable collection of the French director; 
and it is now the property of the United States 
o-overnment. All that relates to the Sieur de la 



24 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Salle — his journals and letters — has been pub- 
lished in the original French, in three large 
volumes of six hundred pages each. La Salle 
discovered the Ohio, yet the possession of the 
rich historical matter referred to throws but little 
light upon the details of this important event. 
The discoverer of the great west, in an address 
to Frontenac, the governor of Canada, made in 
1677, asserted that he had discovered the Ohio, 
and had descended it to a fall which obstructed 
it. This locality is now known as the " Falls of 
the Ohio," at Louisville, Kentucky. 

The second manuscript map of Galinee, made 
about the year 1672, has upon it this inscription: 
" River Ohio, so called by the Iroquois on ac- 
count of its beauty, which the Sieur de la Salle 
descended." It was probably the interpretation 
of the Iroquois word Ohio which caused the 
French frequently to designate this noble stream 
as " La belle riviere." 

A little later the missionary Marquette de- 
signed a map, upon which he calls the Ohio 
the " Ouabouskiaou." Louis Joliet's first map 
gives the Ohio without a name, but supplies 
its place with an inscription stating that La 
Salle had descended it. In Joliet's second map 
he calls the Ohio " Ouboustikou." 

After the missionaries and other explorers had 
given to the world the knowledge possessed at 
that early day of the great west, a young and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 25 

talented engineer of the French government, liv- 
ing in Quebec, and named Jean Baptiste Louis 
Franquelin, completed, in 1684, the most elabo- 
rate map of the times, a carefully traced copy 
of which, through the courtesy of Mr. Francis 
Parkm.an, I have been allowed to examine. The 
original map of Franquelin has recently disap- 
peared, and is supposed to have been destroyed. 
This map is described in the appendix to Mr. 
Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West,'' as 
beino^ " six feet lono: and four and a half wide." 
On it, the Ohio is called " Fleuve St. Louis, ou 
Chucagoa, ou Casquinampogamou; " but the ap- 
pellation of " River St. Louis " was dropped very 
soon after the appearance of Franquelin's map, 
and to the present time it justly retains the Iro- 
quois name given it by its brave discoverer La 
Salle. 

It would be interesting to know by which of 
the routes used by the Indians in those early days 
La Salle travelled to the Ohio. After the exist- 
ence of the Ohio w^as made known, the first route 
made use of in reaching that river by the coureitrs 
de bois and other French travellers from Canada, 
Avas that from the southern shore of Lake Erie, 
from a point near where the town of Westfield 
now stands, across the wilderness by portage 
southward about nine miles to Chautaugue 
Lake. These parties used light bark canoes, 
which were easily carried upon the shoulders 



26 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

of men whenever a ^^ carry " between the two 
streams became necessary. The canoes were 
paddled on the lake to its southern end, out of 
which flowed a shallow brook, w^hich aftbrded 
water enough in places to float the frail craft. 
The shoal water, and the obstructions made by 
fallen trees, necessitated frequent portages. This 
w^ild and tortuous stream led the voyagers to the 
Alleghany River, where an ample depth of water 
and a propitious current carried them into the 
Ohio. 

The French, finding this a laborious and tedious 
route, abandoned it for a better one. Where the 
town of Erie now stands, on the southern shore 
of the lake of the same name, a small stream 
flows from the southward into that inland sea. 
Opposite its mouth is Presque Isle, which pro- 
tects the locality from the north winds, and, act- 
ing as a barrier to the turbulent waves, oflers to 
the mariner a safe port of refuge behind its shores. 
The French ascended the little stream, and from 
its banks made a short portage to the Riviere des 
bceuf, or some tributary of French Creek, and 
descended it to the Alleghany and the Ohio. 
This Erie and French River route finally be- 
came the military highway of the Canadians to 
the Ohio Valley, and may be called the second 
route from Lake Erie. 

The third route to the Ohio from Lake Erie 
commenced at the extreme southwestern end of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 27 

that inland sea. The voyagers entered Maumee 
Bay and ascended the Maumee River, hauling their 
birch canoes around the rapids between Maumee 
City and Perrysburgh, and between Providence 
and Grand Rapids. Surmounting these obsta- 
cles, they reached the site of Fort Wayne, where 
the St. Joseph and St. Mary rivers unite, and 
make, according to the author of the " History of 
the Maumee Valley,'' the "Maumee," or "Mother 
of Waters," as interpreted from the Indian tongue. 
At this point, when ninety-eight miles from Lake 
Erie, the travellers were forced to make a portage 
of a mile and a half to a branch called Little River, 
which they descended to the Wabash, which 
stream, in the early days of French exploration, 
v^as thought to be the main river of the Ohio sys- 
tem. The Wabash is now the boundary line for 
a distance of two hundred miles between the 
states of Indiana and Illinois. Following the 
Wabash, the voyager would enter the Ohio 
River about one hundred and fortv miles above 
its junction with the Mississippi. 

The great Indian diplomatist, " Little Turtle," 
in making a treaty speech in 1795, when confront- 
ing Anthony Wayne, insisted that the Fort Wayne 
portage was the " key or gateway " of the tribes 
havinof communication with the inland chain ol 
lakes and the gulf coast. It is now claimed by 
many persons that this was the principal and 
favorite route of communication between the 



28 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



high and low latitudes followed by the savages 
hundreds of years before Europeans commenced 
the exploration of the great wxst. 

There was a fourth route from the north to the 
tributaries of the Ohio, which was used by the 
Seneca Indians frequently, though rarely by the 
whites. It was further east than the three already 
described. The Genesee River flows into Lake 
Ontario about midway between its eastern shores 
and the longitude of the eastern end of Lake Erie. 
In usinsr this fourth route, the savao^es followed 
the Genesee, and made a portage to some one of 
the affluents of the Alleghany to reach the Ohio 
River. 




FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 29 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM PITTSBURGH TO BLENNERHASSET'S 

ISLAND. 

THE START FOR THE GULF. — CAUGHT IN THE ICE-RAFT.— 
CAMPING ON THE OHIO. — THE GRAVE CREEK MOUND. — AN 
INDIAN SEPULCHRE. — BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND. — AARON 
burr's CONSPIRACY. — A RUINED FAMILY. 

UPON arriving at Pittsburgh/ on the morning 
of December 2d, 1875, after a dreary 
nio-ht's ride by rail from the Atlantic coast, I 
found my boat — it having preceded me — safely 
perched upon a pile of barrels in the freight- 
house of the railroad company, which v^as con- 
veniently situated within a few rods of the muddy 
waters of the Monongahela. 

The sneak-box, with the necessary stores for the 
cruise, was transported to the river's side, and as it 
w^as already a little past noon, and only a few hours 
of daylight left me, prudence demanded an in- 
stant departure in search of a more retired camp- 
ing-ground than that afforded by the great city 
and its neighboring towns, with the united pop- 
ulation of one hundred and eighty thousand souls. 
There was not one friend to give me a cheering 
word, the happy remembrance of which might 



30 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

encourage me all through my lonely voyage to 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

The little street Arabs fought among them- 
selves for the empty provision-boxes left upon 
the bank as I pushed my well-freighted boat out 
upon the whirling current that caught it in its 
strong embrace, and, like a true friend, never 
deserted or lured it into danger while I trusted 
to its vigorous help for more than two thousand 
miles, until the land of the orange and sugar-cane 
was reached, and its fresh, sweet waters were 
exchanged for the restless and treacherous waves 
of the briny sea. Ah, great river, you were in- 
deed, of all material things, my truest friend for 
many a day! 

The rains in the south had filled the gulches 
of the Virginia mountains, the sources of the 
Monongahela, and it now exhibited a great de- 
gree of turbulence. I w^as not then aware of the 
tumultuous state of the sister tributar}^ the Alle- 
ghany, on the other side of the city. I supposed 
that its upper affluents, congealed during the late 
cold weather, were quietly enjoying a winter's 
nap under the heavy coat in which Jack Frost 
had robed them. I expected to have an easy 
and uninterrupted passage down the river in ad- 
vance of Moating ice; and, so congratulating 
myself, I drew near to the confluence of the 
Monongahela and Alleghany, from the union of 
which the great Ohio has its birth, and rolls 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



31 



steadily across the country a thousand miles to 
the mightier Mississippi. 

The current of the Monongahela, as it flowed 
from the south, covered with mists risingf into 
the wintry air, — for the temperature w^as but a 
few degrees above zero, — had not a particle of 
ice upon its turbid bosom. 

I rowed gayly on, pleased with the auspicious 




The ^tart, — flEAD of the pnio Riyer. 



32 FOUR 'MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

beginning of the voyage, hoping at the close of 
the month to be at the mouth of the river, and 
far enough south to escape any inconvenience 
from a sudden freezino^ of its surface, for along- 
its course between its source at Pittsburofh and 
its debouchure at Cairo the Ohio makes only 
two hundred and twelve miles of southing, 
or a difference of about two and a half deo^rees 
of latitude. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
this river during exceedingly cold winters some- 
times freezes over for a few days, from the state 
of Pennsylvania to its junction with the Missis- 
sippi. 

In a few minutes my boat had passed nearly 
the whole length of the Pittsburgh shore, when 
suddenly, upon looking over my shoulder, I 
beheld the river covered with an ice-raft, which 
was passing out of the Alleghany, and which 
completely blocked the Ohio from shore to 
shore. French Creek, Oil Creek, and all the 
other tributaries of the Alleghany, had burst 
from their icy barriers, thrown off the wintry 
coat of mail, and were pouring their combined 
wrath into the Ohio. 

This unforeseen trouble had to be met without 
much time for calculatino^ the results of enterinof 
the ice-pack. A light canoe would have been 
ground to pieces in the multitude of icy cakes, 
but the half-inch skin of soft but elastic white 
swamp-cedar of the decked sneak-box, with its 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 33 

light oaken runner-strips firmly screwed to its 
bottom, was fully able to cope with the difficul- 
ty; so I pressed the boat into the floating ice, 
and by dint of hard work forced her several rods 
beyond the eddies, and fairly into the steady flow 
of the strong current of the river. 

There w^as nothing more to be done to expe- 
dite the journey, so I sat down in the little hold, 
and, wrapped comfortably in blankets, watched 
the progress made by the receding points of in- 
terest upon the high banks of the stream. To- 
wards night some channel-ways opened in the 
pack, and, seizing upon the opportunity, I rowed 
along the ice-bound lanes until dusk, when hap- 
pily a chance was olfered for leaving the frosty 
surroundings, and the duck-boat was soon resting 
on a shelving, pebbly strand on the left bank 
of the river, two miles above the little village 
of Freedom. 

The rapid current had carried me twenty-two 
miles in four hours and a half. 

Not having slept for thirty-six hours, or eaten 
since morning, I was well prepared physically to 
retire at an early hour. A few' minutes sufficed 
to securely stake my boat, to prevent her being 
carried ofl' by a sudden rise in the river during 
my slumbers; a few moments more were occu- 
pied in arranging the thin hair cushions and a 
thick cotton coverlet upon the floor of the boat. 
The bag which contained my wardrobe, consist- 

3 



34 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ing of a blue flannel suit, &c., served for a pillow. 
A heavy shaw^l and two thin blankets furnished 
sufl[icient covering for the bed. Bread and but- 
ter, with Shakers' peach-sauce, and a generous 
slice of Wilson's compressed beef, a tin of water 
from the icy reservoir that flowed past my boat 
and within reach of my arm, all contributed to 
furnish a most satisfactory meal, and a half hour 
afterwards, when a soft, damp fog settled down 
upon the land, the atmosphere became so quiet 
that the rubbing of every ice-cake against the 
shore could be distinctly heard as I sank into a 
sweeter slumber than I had ever experienced in 
the most luxurious bed of the daintiest of o^uest- 
chambers, for my apartment, though small, was 
comfortable, and with the hatch securely closed, 
I was safe from invasion by man or beast, and 
enjoyed the well-earned repose with a full feel- 
ing of security. The owl softly winnowed the 
air with his feathery pinions as he searched for 
his prey along the beach, sending forth an occa- 
sional to-hoot! as he rested for a moment on the 
leafless branches of an old tree, reminding me to 
take a peep at the night, and to inquire " what its 
signs of promise " were. 

All was silence and security; but even while 
I thought that here at least Nature ruled su- 
preme. Art sent to m}^ listening ear, upon the 
dense night air, the shrill whistle of the steam- 
freighter, trying to enter the ice-pack several 
miles down the river. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 35 

So the peaceful night wore away, and in the 
early dawn, enveloped in a thick fog, I hastily 
dispatched a cold breakfast, and at half-past 
eight o'clock pushed otf into the floating ice, 
which became more and more disintegrated and 
less troublesome as the day advanced. The use 
of the soft bituminous coal in the towns along the 
river, and also by the steamboats navigating it, 
filled the valley with clouds of smoke. These 
clouds rested upon everything. Your five senses 
were fully aware of the presence of the disagree- 
able, impalpable something surrounding you. 
Eyes, ears, taste, touch, and smell, each felt the 
presence. Smoky towns along the banks gave 
smoky view^s. Smoky chimneys rose high above 
the smoky foundries and forges, where smoke-be- 
grimed men toiled day and night in the smoky 
atmosphere. Ah, how I sighed for a glimpse of 
God's blessed sunlight! and even w^hile I gazed 
saw in memory the bright pure valleys of the 
north-east; the sparkling waters of lakes George 
and Champlain, and the majestic scener}-, with 
the life-giving atmosphere, of the Adirondacks. 
The contrast seemed to increase the smoke, and 
no cheerfulness w^as added to the scene by the 
dismal-looking holes in the mountain-sides I now 
passed. They were the entrances to mines from 
which the bituminous coal was taken. Some of 
them were being actively worked, and long, 
trough-like shoots were used to send the coal by 



36 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

its own gravity from the entrance of the mine to 
the hold of the barge or coal-ark at the steam- 
boat landing. Some of these mines were worked 
by three men and a horse. The horse drew the 
coal on a little car along the horizontal gallery 
from the heart of the mountain to the light of 
day. '^ 

During the second day the current of the Ohio 
became less violent. I fought a passage among 
the ice-cakes, and whenever openings appeared 
rowed briskly along the sides of the chilly raft, 
with the intent of getting below the frosty zone 
as soon as possible. 

About half-past eight o'clock in the evening, 
when some distance above King's Creek, the 
struggling starlight enabled me to push my boat 
on to a muddy flat, destined soon to be over- 
flowed, but oflering me a secure resting-place 
for a few hours. Upon peeping out of my warm 
nest under the hatch the next day, it was a cause 
of great satisfaction to note that a rise in the tem- 
perature had taken place, and that the ice was 
disappearing by degrees. 

An open-air toilet, and a breakfast of about the 
temperature of a family refrigerator, with sundry 
other inconveniences, made me wish for just 
enough hot water to remove a little of the begrim- 
ing results of" the smoky atmosphere through 
which I had rowed. 

At eleven o'clock, a. m., the first bridge that 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 37 

Spans the Ohio River was passed. It was at 
Steubenville, and the property of the Pan-Handle 
Railroad. 

Soon after four o'clock in the afternoon the busy 
manufacturing city of Wheeling, West Virginia, 
with its great suspension bridge crossing the river 
to the state of Ohio, loomed into sight. 

This city of Wheeling, on the left bank of the 
river, some eighty miles from Pittsburgh, was the 
most impressive sight of that dreary day's row. 
Above its masses of brick walls hung a dense 
cloud of smoke, into which shot the flames 
emitted from the numerous chimneys of forges, 
glass-works, and factories, which made it the 
busy place it was. Ever and anon came the 
deafening sound of the trip-hammer, the rap-a- 
tap-tap of the rivet-headers' tools striking upon 
the heavy boiler-plates; the screeching of steam- 
whistles; the babel of men's voices; the clanging 
of deep-toned bells. Each in turn striking upon 
my ear, seemed as a whole to furnish sufliicient 
noise-tonic for even the most ardent upholder of 
that remedy, and to serve as a type for a second 
Inferno, promising to vie with Dante's own. Yet 
with all this din and dirt, this ever-present cloud 
of blackness settling down each hour upon clean 
and unclean in a sooty coating, I was told that 
hundreds of families of wealth and refinement, 
whose circumstances enabled them to select a 
home where they pleased, lingered here, appar- 



38 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ently well satisfied with their surroundings. We 
are, indeed, the children of habit, and singularly 
adaptable. It is, perhaps, best that it should be 
so, but I thought, as I brushed off the thin layer of 
soot with which the Wheeling cloud of enterprise 
had discolored the pure white deck of m}- little 
craft, that if this was civilization and enterprise, 
I should rather take a little less of those two 
commodities and a little more of cleanliness and 
quiet. 

At Wheeling I left the last of the ice-drifts, but 
now observed a new feature on the river's sur- 
face. It was a floating coat of oil from the pe- 
troleum regions, and it followed me many a mile 
down the stream. 

The river being now free from ice, numerous 
crafts passed me, and among them many steam- 
boats with their immense stern-wheels beating 
the water, being so constructed for shallow 
streams. They were ascending the current, and 
pushing their "tows " of two, four, and six long, 
wide coal-barges fastened in pairs in front of 
them. How the pilots of these stern-wheel 
freighters managed to guide these heavil}' loaded 
barofes a<rainst the treacherous current was a 
mystery to me. 

It suddenly grew dark, and wishing to be se- 
cure from molestation by steamboats, I ran into 
a narrow creek, with high, muddy banks, which 
were so steep and so slippery that my boat slid 




FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 39 

into the water as fast as I could haul her on to 
the shore. This diliiculty w^as overcome by dig- 
ging with m}' oar a bed for her to rest in, and she 
soon settled into the damp ooze, where she qui- 
etly remained until morning. 

During this part of my journey parti cularl}', 
the need of a small coal-oil stove was 
felt, as the usual custom of making a 
camp-fire could not be followed for 
many days on the upper Ohio River. 
The rains had wet the fire-wood, ^^^m 
which in a settled and cultivated coun- 
try is found only in small quantities Poal-Dil 

^ , "^ ^ ^ Stove. 

on the banks of the stream. The drift- 
'W'^ood thrown up by the river was almost satu- 
rated with water, and the damp, wild trees of the 
swamp afforded only green wood. 

In a less settled country, or where there is an 
old forest growth, as along the lower Ohio and 
upon the banks of the iNlississippi, fallen trees, 
with resinous, dry hearts, can be found; and even 
during a heavy fall of rain a skilful use of the axe 
will bring out these ancient interiors to cheer the 
voyager's heart by affording him excellent fuel 
for his camp-fire. 

The recently perfected coal-oil stove does not 
give out disagreeable odors when the petroleum 
used is refined, like that knovv^i in the market as 
Pratfs Astral Oil, This brand of oil does not 
contain naphtha, the existence of which in the 



40 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

partially refined oils is the cause of so many dan- 
gerous explosions of kerosene lamps. 

Recent experiences with coal-oil burners lead 
me to adopt, for camp use, the No. single-wick 
stove of the " Florence Machine Co.," whose ex- 
cellent wares attracted so much attention at the 
Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The 
No. Florence stove will sustain the weight of 
one hundred and fifty pounds, and is one of the 
few absolutely safe oil stoves, with perfect com- 
bustion, and no unpleasant odor or gas. This 
statement presupposes that the wricks are wiped 
along the burnt edges after being used, and that 
a certain degree of cleanliness is observed in the 
care of the oil cistern. I do not stand alone in 
my appreciation of this faithful little stove, for 
the company sold forty thousand of them in one 
3^ear. In Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia, Dr. 
L. P. Brockett, of Brooklyn, N. Y., expresses 
himself in the most enthusiastic terms in regard 
to this stove. He says: "For summer use it will 
be a great boon to the thousands of women 
whose lives have been made bitter and wretched 
by confinement in close and intensely heated 
kitchens; in many cases it will give health for 
disease, strength for weakness, cheerfulness for 
depression, and profound thankfulness in place 
of gloom and despair." 

Boatmen and canoeists should never travel 
without one of these indispensable comforts. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 4 1 

Alcohol Stoves are small, and the fuel used too 
expensive, as v^ell as difficult to obtain, while 
good coal-oil can now be had even on the bor- 
ders of the remote wilderness. The economy 
of its use is w^onderful. A heat sufficient to boil 
a gallon of water in thirty minutes can be sus- 
tained for ten hours at the cost of three cents. 

For lack of one of these little blessings — which 
the prejudice of friends had influenced me to leave 
behind — my daily meals for the first two or three 
weeks generally consisted of cold, cooked canned 
beef, bread and butter, canned fruits, and cold 
river water. The absence of hot coffee and other 
stimulants did not affect my appetite, nor the en- 
joyment of the morning and evening repasts, cold 
and untempting as they were. The vigorous day's 
row in the open air, the sweet slumbers that fol- 
lowed it at night in a well-ventilated apartment, 
a simple, unexciting life, the mental rest from 
vexatious business cares, all proved superior to 
any tonic a physician could prescribe, and I 
became more rugged as I grew accustomed to 
the duties of an oarsman, and gained several 
pounds avoirdupois by the time I ended the 
row of twenty-six hundred miles and landed 
on the sunn}^ shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Sunday broke upon me a sunless day. The 
water of the creek was too muddy to drink, and 
the rain began to fall in torrents. I had antici- 
pated a season of rest and quiet in camp, with a 



42 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

bright fire to cheer the lonely hours of my frosty 
sojourn on the Ohio, but there was not a piece 
of dry wood to be found, and it became neces- 
sary to change my position for a more propitious 
local it}^; so I rowed down the stream twelve 
miles, to Big Grave Creek, below which, and 
on the left bank of the Ohio, is the town of 
Moundsville. One of the interesting features of 
this place is its frontage on a channel possessing 
a depth of fifteen feet of water even in the dry- 
est seasons. Wheeling, at the same time of the 
year, can claim but seven feet. Here, also, is 
the great Indian mound from which it derives its 
name. 

The resting-place of my craft was upon a mud- 
dy slope in the rear of a citizen's yard which faced 
the river; but when the storm ended, on Monday 
morning, my personal effects were hidden from 
the gaze of idlers by securely locking the hatch, 
w^hich was done with the same facility with which 
one locks his trunk — and the former occupant 
w^as at liberty to visit the " Big Grave." 

I walked through the mudd}^ streets of the un- 
interesting village to the conspicuous monument 
of the aboriginal inhabitant of the river's mar- 
gin. It was a conical hill, situated within the 
limits of the town, and known to students of 
American pre-historic races as the " Grave Creek 
Mound." This particular creation of a lost race 
is the most important of the numerous works of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 43 

the Mound Builders which are found throuo-hout 
the Ohio Valle3\ Its circumference at the base 
is nine hundred feet, and its height seventy feet. 
In 1838 the location was owned by Mr. Tomlin- 
son, Avho penetrated to the centre of the mound 
by excavating a passage on a level with the foun- 
dation of the structure. He then sank a shaft 
from the apex to intercept the ground passage. 
Mr. Tomlinson's statement is as follows: 

^^At the distance of one hundred and eleven 
feet we came to a vault which had been exca- 
vated before the mound was commenced, eight 
by twelve feet, and seven in depth. Along each 
side, and across the ends, upright timbers had 
been placed, which supported timbers thrown 
across the vault as a ceilino^. These timbers 
were covered with loose unhewn stone common 
to the neighborhood. The timbers had rotted, 
and had tumbled into the vault. In this vault 
were two human skeletons, one of w^hich had no 
ornaments; the other was surrounded by six hun- 
dred and fifty ivory (shell) beads, and an ivory 
(bone) ornament six inches long. In sinking the 
shaft, at thirty-four feet above the first, or bottom 
vault, a similar one was found, enclosing a skel- 
eton which had been decorated with a profu- 
sion of shell beads, copper rings, and plates of 
mica." 

Dr. Clemmens, who was much interested in 
the work of exploration here, says : " At a dis- 



44 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

tance of twelve or fifteen feet were found numer- 
ous layers composed of charcoal and burnt bones. 
On reaching the lower vault from the top, it was 
determined to enlarge it for the accommodation 
of visitors, when ten more skeletons were dis- 
covered. This mound was supposed to be the 
;tomb of a royal personage." 

At the time of my visit, the ground was cov- 
ered with a grassy sod, and large trees arose from 
its sloping sides. The horizontal passage was 
kept in a safe state by a lining of bricks, and I 
walked throusrh it into the heart of the Indian 
sepulchre. It was a damp, dark, weird interior; 
but the perpendicular shaft, which ascended to 
the apex, kept up an uninterrupted current of 
air. I found it anything but a pleasant place in 
which to linger, and soon retraced my steps to 
the boat, where I once more embarked upon the 
ceaseless current, and kept upon my winding 
course, praying for even one glimpse of the sun, 
whose face had been veiled from my sight during 
the entire voyage, save for one brief moment when 
the brightness burst from the surrounding gloom 
only to be instantly eclipsed, and making all seem, 
by contrast, more dismal than ever. 

It would not interest the general reader to give 
a description of the few cities and many small 
villages that were passed during the descent of 
the Ohio. Few of these places possess even a 
local interest, and the eye soon wearies of the air 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 45 

of monotony found in them all. Even the guide- 
books dispose of these villages with a little dry 
detail, and rarely recommend the tourist to visit 
one of them. 

One feature maybe, hov^ever, remarked in de- 
scending the Ohio, and that is the ambition dis- 
played by the pioneers of civilization in the west 
in naming hamlets and towns — which, with few 
exceptions, are still of little importance — after 
the great cities of the older parts of the United 
States, and also of foreign lands. These names, 
which occupy such important positions on the 
maps, excite the imagination of the traveller, and 
when the reality comes into view, and he enters 
their narrow limits, the commonplace architect- 
ure and generally unattractive surroundings have 
a most depressing effect, and he sighs, " What 's 
in a name?" We find upon the map the name 
and appearance of a city, but it proves to be the 
most uninteresting of villages, though known as 
Amsterdam. We also lind many towns of the 
Hudson duplicated in name on the Ohio, and 
pass Troy, Albany, Newburg, and New York. 
The cities of Great Britain are in many instances 
perpetuated by the names of Aberdeen, Manches- 
ter, Dover, Portsmouth, Liverpool, and London; 
while other nations are represented by Rome, 
Carthage, Ghent, Warsaw, Moscow, Gallipolis, 
Bethlehem, and Cairo. Strangely sandwiched 
with these old names we find the southern 



46 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

states represented, as in Augusta, Charleston, 
&€.; while the Indian names Miami, Guyandot, 
Paducah, Wabash, and Kanawha are thrown in 
for variety. 

In the cvenino: I sous^ht the shelter of an island 
on the left side of the river, about three miles 
above Sisterville, which proved to be a restful 
camping-place during the dark night that set- 
tled down upon the surrounding country. 

Tuesday being a rainy day, I was forced by 
the inclemency of the weather to seek for better 
quarters in a retired creek about three miles 
above the thriving town of Marietta, so named 
in honor of Maria Antoinette of Austria. 

The country was now becoming inore pleasing 
in character, and many of the islands, as I floated 
past them on the current, gave evidence of great 
fertility where cultivation had been bestowed 
upon them. Some of these islands were con- 
nected to one shore of the river by low dams, 
carelessly constructed of stones, their purpose 
being to deepen the channel upon the opposite 
side by diverting a considerable volume of water 
into it. When the water is very low^, the tops of 
these dams can be seen, and must, of course, be 
avoided by boatmen; but when the Ohio increases 
its depth of w^ater, these artificial aids to naviga- 
tion are submerged, and even steamboats float 
securely over them. 

On Wednesday the river began to rise, in conse- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 47 

quence of the heavy rains; so, with an increased 
current, the duck-boat left her quarters about 
eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Early in the 
afternoon, Parkersburgh, situated at the mouth of 
the Little Kanawha River, in Virginia, came into 
view. This is the outlet of the petroleum region 
of West Virginia, and is opposite the little village 
of Belpre, which is in the state of Ohio. These 
towns are connected by a massive iron bpidge, 
built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Com- 
pany. 

Two miles below Belpre lay the beautiful is- 
land, formerly the home of Blennerhasset, an 
Eno'lish orentleman of Irish descent, of whom a 
most interesting account was given in a late num- 
ber of Harper's Magazine. Mr. Blennerhasset 
came to New York in 1797, w^ith his wife and 
one child, hoping to find in America freedom 
of opinion and action denied him at home, as his 
relations and friends were all royalists, and op- 
posed to the republican principles he had im- 
bibed. Here, on this sunny island, under the 
grand old trees, he built a stately mansion, where 
wealth and culture, combined w^ith all things rich 
and rare from the old world, made an Eden for 
all who entered it. 

Ten negro servants were bought to minister 
to the daily needs of the household. Over forty 
thousand dollars in gold were spent upon the 
buildings and grounds. A telescope of high 



48 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

power to assist in his researches, books of every 
description, musical instruments, chemical and 
philosophical apparatus, everything, in fact, that 
could add to the progress and comfort of an intel- 
lectual man, v/as here collected. Docks were 
built, and a miniature fleet moored in the soft 
waters of the ever-flowino: Ohio. Nature had 
begun, Blennerhasset finished; and we cannot 
wonder when we read of the best families in the 
neighboring country going often thirty and forty 
miles to partake of the generous hospitalit}^ here 
offered them. Mrs. Blennerhasset, endowed by 
nature ^vith beauty and winsome manners, was 
always a charming and attractive hostess, as well 
as a true wife and mother. 

For eight years Blennerhasset lived upon his 
island, enjoying more than is accorded to the lot 
of most mortals; but the story of his position, his 
intelligence, his wealth, his wonderful social in- 
fluence upon those around him, reached at length 
the ear of one who marked him for his prey. 

Aaron Burr had been chosen vice-president 
of the United States in 1800, with Thomas Jef- 
ferson as president; but in 1804, when Jeflerson 
was re-elected. Burr was not. The brain of 
this brilliant but ill-balanced and unprincipled 
man was ever rife with ambitious schemes, and 
the taste of political power in his position as vice- 
president of the United States seemed to have 
driven him towards the accomplishment of one 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 49 

of the boldest and most extravagant dreams he 
ever imagined. Mexico he thought could be 
wrested from Spain, and the then almost unpeo- 
pled valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi taken 
from the United States. This fair region, with 
its fertile soil and varied climate, should be 
blended into one empire. On the north, the 
Great Lakes should be his boundary line, while 
the Gulf of Mexico should lave with its salt 
waters his southern shores. The high cliffs of 
the Rocky Mountains should protect the western 
boundary, and on the east the towering Allegha- 
nies form a barrier to invading foe. 

Such was the dream, and a fair one it was. 
Of this new empire, Aaron Burr would of course 
be Imperator; and the ways and means for its 
establishment must be found. The distant Blen- 
nerhasset seemed to point to the happy termina- 
tion of at least some of the difficulties. His 
wealth, if not his personal influence, must be 
gained, and no man was better suited to win 
his point than the fascinating Aaron Burr. We 
will not enter into the plans of the artful insinu- 
ator made to enlist the sympathies of the unsus- 
pecting Englishman, but we must ever feel sure 
that the cloven foot was well concealed until the 
last, for Blennerhasset loved the land of his adop- 
tion, and would not have Hstened to any plan 
for its impoverishment. His means were given 
lavishly for the aid of the new colony, as Burr 

4 



50 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

called it, and his personal influence made use 
of in enlisting recruits. Arms were furnished, 
and the Indian foe given as an excuse for this 
measure. 

Burr during this time resided at Marietta, on 
the right bank of the river, fifteen miles above 
Blennerhasset's Island. He occupied himself in 
overseeinor the buildins: of fifteen laro^e bateaux 
in which to transport his colony. Ten of these 
flat-bottomed boats were forty feet long, ten feet 
wide, and two and a half feet deep. The ends 
of the boats were similar, so that they could be 
pushed up or down stream. One boat was lux- 
uriously fitted up, and intended to transport 
Mr. Blennerhasset and family, proving most 
conclusively that he knew nothing of any trea- 
sonable scheme against the United States. 

The boats were intended to carry ^ve hundred 
men, and" the energy of Colonel Burr had en- 
gaged nearly the w^hole number. The El Dorado 
held out to these young men was painted in the 
most brilliant hues of Burr's eloquence. He told 
them that Jefferson, who was popular with them 
all, approved the plan. That they were to take 
possession of the immense grant purchased of 
Baron Bastrop, but that in case of a war between 
the United States and Spain, which might at any 
time occur, as the Mexicans were very weary 
of the Spanish 3'oke, Congress would send an 
army to protect the settlers and help Mexico, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 5 1 

SO that a new empire would be founded of a 
democratic type, and the settlers finding all on 
an equality, would be enabled to enrich them- 
selves beyond all former precedent. 

About this time rumors were circulated that 
Aaron Burr was plotting some mischief against 
the United States. Jefi:erson himself became 
alarmed, knowing as he so well did the ambition 
of Burr and his unprincipled character. A secret 
agent was sent to make inquiries in regard to the 
doino^s at Blennerhasset's Island and Marietta. 
This agent, Mr. John Graham, was assured by 
. Mr. Blennerhasset that nothing was intended 
save the peaceful establishment of a colony on 
the banks of the Washita. 

Various reports still continued to greet the 
public ear, and of such a nature as to make Blen- 
nerhasset's name disliked. Some said treason 
was lurking, and blamed him for it. He was 
openly spoken of as the accomplice of Burr. 
The legislature of Ohio even made a law to 
suppress all expeditions found armed, and to 
seize all boats and provisions belonging to such 
expeditions. The governor was ready at a mo- 
ment's notice to call out the state miHtia. A 
cannon was placed on the river-bank at Marietta, 
and strict orders given to examine every boat 
that descended the stream. 

Mr. Blennerhasset had no idea of resisting the 
authorities, and gave up the whole scheme, de- 



52 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

termined to meet his heavy losses as best he 
might. 

Four boats, with about thirty men, had been 
landed upon Blennerhassef s Island a short time 
before these rigorous measures had been taken. 
They were under the care of Mr. Tyler, one of 
Burr's agents from New York, and he did all in his 
power to urge Blennerhasset not to retire at so 
critical a moment. It was, however, too late to 
avert calamity, and the unfortunate family was 
doomed to misfortune. 

The alarming intelligence now reached the 
island that the Wood Countv militia was en route 
for that place, that the boats would be seized, 
the men taken prisoners, and probably the man- 
sion burned, as the most desperate characters in 
the surrounding country had volunteered for 
the attack. Urged by his friends, Blennerhasset 
and the few men with him escaped by the boats. 
His flight was not a moment too soon, for having 
been branded as a traitor, no one knows what 
mio:ht have befallen him had the lawless men 
who arrived immediately after his departure 
found him in their power. Colonel Phelps, the 
commander of the militia, started in pursuit, and 
the remainder of his men, w^ith no one to restrain 
them, gave full play to their savage feelings. 
Seven days of riot followed. They took pos- 
session of the house, broke into the cellars, and 
drank the choice wines, until, more like beasts 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



53 



than men, they made havoc of the rich accumu- 
lation of years. Everything w^as destroyed. The 
paintings, the ornaments, rare glass and china, 
family silver, furniture, and, w^orst vandalism of 
all, the flames w^ere fed w^ith the choicest vol- 
umes, many of which never could be duplicated, 
for the value of Blennerhasset's library w^as 
known through all the country. 

Mrs. Blennerhasset had remained upon the 
island during this week of terror, hoping by her 
presence to restrain the lawless band, but the 
brave woman was at last obliged to fly with her 
two little sons, taking refuge on one of the flat 
river boats sent by a friend to afford her a way 
of escape. 

Mr. Blennerhasset was afterwards arrested for 
treason, but no evidence could be found against 
him, and he was never brought to trial. He in- 
vested the little means left him in a cotton plan- 
tation near Natchez, where, with his devoted 
wife, he tried to retrieve his fallen fortunes. The 
second war with England rendered his plantation 
worthless, and returning by way of Montreal to 
his native land, he died a broken-hearted man, 
leaving his wife in destitute circumstances. An 
attempt was made by her friends to obtain some 
return for the destruction of their property from 
the United States government, but all proved of 
no avail, and she who had always been surround- 
ed by wealth and luxury, was, during her last 



54 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



hours, dependent upon the charity of a society of 
Irish ladies in New York city, who with tender- 
ness nursed her unto the end, and then took upon 
themselves the expenses of her interment. 

Such is the sad story of Blennerhasset and his 
wife; and I thought, as I quietly moored my boat 
in a little creek that mingled its current with the 
great river, near the lower end of the island which 
was once such a happy home, of the uncertainty 
of all earthly prosperity, and the necessity there 
was for making the most of the present, — which 
last idea sent a sleepy sailor hastily under his 
hatch. 




JnDIAN yVlOUND, AT yVIOUNDSYILLE, "JVeST yiRGINIA. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 55 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND TO CINCINNATI. 

RIVER CAMPS. — THE SHANTY-BOATS AND RIVER MIGRANTS. — 
VARIOUS EXPERIENCES. — ARRIVAL AT CINCINNATI. — THE 
SNEAK-BOX FROZEN UP IN PLEASANT RUN. — A TAILOR'S 
FAMILY. — A NIGHT UNDER A GERMAN COVERLET. 

ABOUT this time the selection of resting- 
places for the night became an important 
feature of the voyage. It was easy to draw the 
little craft out of the water on to a smooth, 
shelving beach, but such places did not always 
appear at the proper time for ending the day's 
rowing. The banks were frequently precipitous, 
and, destitute of beaches, frowned down upon 
the lonely voyager in anything but a hospitable 
manner. There were also present two elements 
antagonistic to my peace of mind. One was the 
night steamer, which, as it struggled up stream, 
coursing along shore to avoid the strong current, 
sent swashy weaves to disturb my dreams by 
pitching my little craft about in the roughest 
manner. A light canoe could easily have been 
carried further inland, out of reach of the un- 
welcome waves, and would, so far as that went, 
have made a more quiet resting-place than the 



56 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

heavy duck-boat; but then, on the other hand, 
a sleeping-apartment in a canoe would have 
lacked the roominess and security of the sneak- 
box. 

After the first few nights' camping on the 
Ohio, I naturally took to the channelless side of 
one of the numerous islands which dot the river's 
surface, or, what was still better, penetrated 
into the wild-looking creeks and rivers, more 
than one hundred of which enter the parent 
stream along the thousand miles of its course. 
Here, in these secluded nooks, I found security 
from the steamer's swash. 

The second objectionable element on the 
Ohio was the presence of tramps, rough boat- 
men, and scoundrels of all kinds. In fact, the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers are the grand high- 
way of the West for a large class of vagabonds. 
One of these fellows will steal something of 
value from a farm near the river, seize the first 
bateau, or skiff, he can find, cross the stream, 
and descend it for fifty or a hundred miles. 
He will then abandon the stolen boat if he 
cannot sell it, ship as working-hand upon the 
lirst steamer or coal-ark he happens to meet, 
descend the river still further, and so escape 
detection. 

To avoid these rough characters, as well as 
the drunken crews of shanty-boats, it was neces- 
sary always to enter the night's camping-ground 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 57 

unobserved; but when once secreted on the 
wooded shore of some friendly creek, covered 
b}^ the dusky shades of night, I felt perfectly 
safe, and had no fear of a night attack from 
an}^ one. Securely shut in my strong box, 
with a hatchet and a Colt's revolver by my side, 
and a double-barrelled gun, carefully charged, 
snugly stowed under the deck, the intruder 
would have been in danger, and not the occu- 
pant of the sneak-box. 

The hatch, or cover, which rested upon the 
stern of the boat during rowing-hours, was at 
night dropped over the hold, or well, in such 
a way as to give plenty of ventilation, and 
still, at the same time, to be easily and in- 
stantly removed in case of need. 

I must not fail here to mention one char- 
acteristic feature possessed by the sneak-box 
which gives it an advantage over every other 
boat I have examined. Its deck is nowhere 
level, and if a person attempts to step upon it 
while it is afloat, his foot touches the periph- 
ery of a circle, and the spoon-shaped, keelless, 
little craft flies out as if by magic from under 
the pressure of the foot, and without further 
warnino^ the luckless intruder falls into the 
water. 

At the summer w^atering-places in Barnegat 
Bay it used to be a great source of amusement 
to the boatmen to tie a sneak-box to a land- 



58 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ing, and wait quietly near by to see the city 
boys attempt to get into her. Instead of step- 
ping safely and easily into the hold, they would 
invariably step upon the rounded deck, when 
away would shoot the slippery craft, and the 
unsuccessful boarder would fall into two feet 
of water, to the great amusement of his com- 
rades. When once inside of the sneak-box, it 
becomes the stiifest and steadiest of crafts. 
Two men can stand upright upon the floor- 
ing of the hold and paddle her along rapidly, 
with very little careening to right or left. 

By far the most interesting and peculiar feat- 
ures of a winter's row down the Ohio are the 
life-studies offered by the occupants of the nu- 
merous shanty-boats daily encountered. They 
are sometimes called, and justly too, family- 
boats, and serve as the winter homes of a 
singular class of people, carrying their passen- 
gers and cargoes from the icy region of the 
Ohio to New Orleans. Their annual descent 
of the river resembles the migration of birds, 
and we invariably find those of a feather flock- 
ins: too^ether. It would be hard to trace these 
creatures to their lair; but the Alleghany and 
Monongahela region, with the towns of the up- 
per Ohio, may be said to furnish most of them. 
Let them come from where they may (and we 
feel sure none will quarrel for the honor of 
calling them citizens), the fall of the leaf 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 59 

seems to be the signal for looking up winter- 
quarters, and the river with its swift current 
the inviting path to warmer suns and an easy 

life. 

The shanty-boatman looks to the river not 
only for his life, but also for the means of mak- 
ing that life pleasant; so he fishes in the stream 
for floatino; lumber in the form of boards, planks, 
and scantling for framing to build his home. It 
is soon ready. A scow, or flatboat, about twenty 
feet long by ten or twelve wide, is roughly con- 
structed. It is made of two-inch planks spiked 
too-ether. These scows are calked with oakum 
and rags, and the seams are made water-tight 
with pitch or tar. A small, low house is built 
upon the boat, and covers about two-thirds of 
it, leaving a cockpit at each end, in which the 
crews work the sweeps, or oars, which govern 
the motions of the shanty-boat. If the propri- 
etor of the boat has a family, he puts its mem- 
bers on board, — not forgetting the pet dogs 
and cats, — with a small stock of salt pork, 
bacon, flour, potatoes, molasses, salt, and coffee. 
An old cooking-stove is set up in the shanty, and 
its sheet-iron pipe, projecting through the roof, 
makes a chimney a superfluity. Rough bunks, 
or berths, are constructed for sleeping-quarters; 
but if the family are the happy possessors of any 
furniture, it is put on board, and adds greatly to 
their respectability. A number of steel traps. 



6o FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

with the usual double-barrelled o:un, or rifle, 
and a good supply of ammunition, constitute the 
most important supplies of the shanty-boat, and 
are never forgotten. Of these family-boats alone 
I passed over two hundred on the Ohio. 

This rude, unpainted structure, with its door 
at each end of the shanty, and a few windows 
relieving the barrenness of its sides, makes a 
very comfortable home for its rough occupants. 

If the shanty-man be a widower or a bach- 
elor, or even if he be a mxarried man labor- 
ing under the belief that his wife and he are 
not true affinities, and that there is more war 
in the house than is good for the peace of the 
household, he looks about for a housekeeper. 
She must be some congenial spirit, Avho will 
fry his bacon and wash his shirts without mur- 
muring. Having found one whom he fondly 
thinks will " fill the bill,*" he next proceeds to 
picture to her vivid imagination the delights of 
" driftingP " Nothing to do,'' he says, " but 
to float with the current, and eat fresh pork, 
and take a hand at euchre." The woods, he 
tells her, are full of hogs. They shall fall an 
easy prey to his unfailing gun, and after them, 
when further south, the golden orange shall de- 
light her thirst}' soul, while all the sugar-cane 
she can chew shall be gathered for her. Add 
to these the luxury of plenty of snuft^ with 
which to rub her dainty gums, with the promise 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 6 1 

of tobacco enough to keep her pipe always full, 
and it will be hard to find among this class a 
fair one with sufficient strength of mind to resist 
such an offer; so she promises to keep house for 
him as long as the shanty-boat holds together. 

Her embarkation is characteristic. Whatever 
her attire, the bonnet is there, gay w^ith flowers; 
a pack of cards is tightly grasped in her hand; 
while a worn, old trunk, tied with a cord and 
fondly called a ^^ Saratoga," is hoisted on board; 
and so, for better or for worse, she goes forth 
to meet her fate, or, as she expresses it, " to find 
luck." 

More than one quarrel usually occurs during 
the descent of the Mississippi, and by the time 
New Orleans is reached the shanty-boatman sets 
his quondam housekeeper adrift, where, in the 
swift current of life, she is caught by kindred 
spirits, and being introduced to city society as 
the Northern Lily, or Pittsburgh Rose, is soon 
lost to sio-ht, and never returns to the far distant 

CD ' 

up-river country. 

Another shanty-boat is built by a party of 
young men suflering from impecuniosity. They 
are " out of a job,'' and to them the charms of 
an independent life on the river is irresistible. 
Having pooled their few dollars to build their 
floating home, they descend to New Orleans as 
negro minstrels, trappers, or thieves, as neces- 
sity may demand. 



62 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Cobblers set afloat their establishments, calling 
attention to the fact by the creaking sign of a 
boot; and here on the rushing river a man can 
have his heel tapped as easily as on shore. 

Tin-smiths, agents and repairers of sewing- 
machines, grocers, saloon-keepers, barbers, and 
every trade indeed is here represented on these 
floating dens. I saw one circus-boat with a ring 
twenty-five feet in diameter upon it, in which a 
troop of horsemen, acrobats, and flying trapeze 
artists performed while their boat was tied to a 
landing. 

The occupants of the shanty-boats float upon 
the stream with the current, rarely doing any 
rowing w^ith their heavy sweeps. Tliey keep 
steadily on their course till a milder climate is 
reached, w^ien they work their clumsy craft into 
some little creek or river, and securel}^ fasten it to 
the bank. The men set their well-baited steel 
traps along the wooded watercourse for mink, 
coons, and foxes^ They give their whole atten- 
tion to these traps, and in the course of a winter 
secure many skins. While in the Mississippi 
country, however, they find other game, and 
feast upon the hogs of the woods' people. To 
prevent detection, the skin, with the swine-herd's 
peculiar mark upon it, is stripped ofl* and buried. 

When engaged in the precarious occupation 
of hog-stealing, the shanty-man is careful to 
keep a goodly number of the skins of wild 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 63 

animals stretched upon the outside walls of his 
cabin, so that visitors to his boat may be led to 
imaofine that he is an industrious and legiti- 
mate trapper, of high-toned feelings, and one 
^^who wouldn't stick a man's hog for no money." 
If there be a religious meeting in the vicinity of 
the shanty-boat, the whole famil}^ attend it with 
alacrity, and prove that their belief in honest 
doctrines is a very different thing from their 
daily practice of the same. They join with 
vigor in the shoutings, and their "amens" drown 
all others, while their excitable natures, worked 
upon by the wild eloquence of the backwoods' 
preacher, seem to give evidence of a firm de- 
sire to lead Christian lives, and the spectator is 
often deceived by their apparent earnestness 
and sincerity. Such ideas are, however, quickly 
dispelled by a visit to a shanty-boat, and a 
glimpse of these people " at honied 

The great fleet of shanty-boats does not be- 
gin to reach New Orleans until the approach 
of spring. Once there, they find a market for 
the skins of the animals trapped during the 
winter, and these being sold for cash, the trap- 
per disposes of his boat for a nominal sum to 
some one in need of cheap firewood, and pur- 
chasing lower-deck tickets for Cairo, or Pitts- 
burgh, at from four to six dollars per head, 
places his family upon an up-river steamer, and 
returns with the spring birds to the Ohio River, 



64 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

to rent a small piece of ground for the season, 
where he can " make a crop of corn," and raise 
some cabbage and potatoes, upon which to sub- 
sist until it be time to repeat his southern migra- 
tion. 

In this descent of the river, many persons, who 
have clubbed together to meet the expenses of a 
shanty-boat life for the first time, and who are 
of a sentimental turn of mind, look upon the voy- 
age as a romantic era in their lives. Visions of 
basking in the sunlight, feasting, and sleeping, 
dance before their benighted eyes; for they are 
not all of the low, ignorant class I have described. 
Professors, teachers, musicians, all drift at times 
down the river; and one is often startled at find- 
ing in the apparently rough crew men who seem 
worthy of abetter fate. To these the river expe- 
riences are generally new, and the ribald jokes 
and low river slang, with the ever-accompany- 
ing cheap corn-whiskey and the nightly riots over 
cutthroat euchre, must be at first a revelation. 
Hundreds of these low fellows will swear to you 
that the ^vorld owes them a living, and that they 
mean to have it; that they are gentlemen, and 
therefore cannot w^ork. The}' pay a good price 
for their indolence, as the neglect of their craft 
and their loose ideas of navigation seldom fail to 
bring them to grief before they even reach the 
Mississippi at Cairo. Their heavy, flat-bottomed 
boat gets impaled upon a snag or the sharp top 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 65 

of a sawyer; and as the luckless craft spins round 
with the current, a hole is punched through the 
bottom, the water rushes in and takes possession, 
driving the inexperienced crew to the little boat 
usually carried in tow for any emergency. 

Into this boat the shanty-men hastily store their 
guns, whiskey, and such property as they can 
save from the wreck, and making for the shore, 
hold a council of war. 

There, in the swift current, lies the centre of 
their hopes, quickly settling in the deep water, 
soon to be seen no more. The fact now seems 
to dawn upon them for the first time that a little 
seamanship is needed even in descending a 
river, that with a little care their Noah's Ark 
might have been kept afloat, and the treacherous 
^^ bob sawyer" avoided. This trap for careless 
sailors is a tree, with its roots held in the river's 
bottom, and its broken top bobbing up and down 
with the undulations of the current. Boatmen 
give it the euphonious title of ^' bob sawyer " 
because of the bobbino^ and sawins^ motions im- 
parted to it by the pulsations of the water. 

Destitute of means, these children of circum- 
stance resolve never to say die. Their ship has 
gone down, but their pride is left, and they will 
not go home till they have ^'done'''' the river; 
and so, repairing to the first landing, they ship in 
pairs upon freighters descending the stream. 
Some months later they return to their homes 

5 



66 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

with seedy habiliments but an enlarged expe- 
rience, sadder but wiser men. 

And so the great flood of river life goes on, 
and out of this annual custom of shanty-boat mi- 
gration a peculiar phase of American character 
is developed, a curious set of educated and 
illiterate nomads, as restless and unprofitable a 
class of inhabitants as can be found in all the 
great West. 

After leaving my camp near Blennerhasset's 
Island, on December 9, the features of the land- 
scape changed. The hills lost their altitude, and 
seemed farther back from the water, while the 
river itself appeared to widen. Snow squalls 
filled the air, and the thought of a comfortable 
camping-ground for the night was a welcome 
one. About dusk I retired into the first creek 
above Letart's Landing, on the left bank of the 
Ohio, where I spent the night. The next fore- 
noon I entered a region of salt wells, with a 
number of flourishing little towns scattered here 
and there upon the borders of the stream. One 
of these, called Hartford City, had a well eleven 
hundred and seventy feet in depth. From an- 
other well in the vicinity both oil and salt-w^ater 
were raised by means of a steam-pump. These 
oil-wells were half a mile back of the river. 
Coal-mines were frequently passed in this neigh- 
borhood on both sides of the Ohio. 

After dark I was fortunate enough to find a 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 67 

camping-place in a low swamp on the right bank 
of the stream, in the vicinity of which was a 
gloomy-looking, deserted house. I climbed the 
slippery bank with my cooking kit upon my 
back, and finding some refuse wood in what had 
once been a kitchen, made a fire, and enjoyed 
the first meal I had been able to cook in camp 
since the voyage was commenced. 

Cold winds whistled round me all night, but 
the snug nest in my boat was warm and cheerful, 
for I lighted my candle, and by its clear flame 
made up my daily " log." There were, of course, 
some inconveniences in regard to lighting so 
low-studded a chamber. It was important to 
have a candle of not more than two inches in 
length, so that the flame should not go too near 
the roof of my domicile. Then the space being 
small, my literary labors were of necessity per- 
formed in a reclining position; while lying upon 
m}^ side, my shoulder almost touched the carlines 
of the hatch above. 

Saturday was as raw and . blustering as the 
previous day, so hastily breakfasting upon the 
remains of my supper, — cold chocolate, cold 
corned beef, and cold crackers, — I determined 
to get into a milder region as soon as possible. 

As I rowed down the stream, the peculiar ap- 
pearance of the Barnegat sneak-box attracted the 
attention of the men on board the coal-barges, 
shanty-boats, &c., and they invariably crowded 



68 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

to the side I passed, besieging me with questions 
of every description, such as, " Say, stranger, 
where did you steal that pumpkin-seed looking 
boat from?" "How much did she cost, any 
way?" "Ain't ye afeard some steamboat will 
swash the life out of her? " On several occasions 
I raised the water-apron, and explained how the 
little sneak-box shed the water that washed over 
her bows, when these rough fellows seemed 
much impressed with the excellent qualities of 
the boat, and frankly acknowledged that " it 
might pay a fellow to steal one if there was a 
good show for such a trick." 

At three o'clock p. m. I passed the town of 
Guyandot, which is situated on the left bank of 
the Ohio, at its junction with the Big Guyandot. 
Three miles below Guyandot is the growing city 
of Huntington, the Ohio River terminus of the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which has a 
total length of four hundred and sixty-five miles, 
exclusive of six private branches. The Atlantic 
coast terminus is on the James River, Chesa- 
peake Bay. 

The snow squalls now became so frequent, and 
the atmosphere was so chilly and penetrating, 
that I was driven from the swashy waves of the 
troubled Ohio, and eagerly sought refuge in 
Fourfold Creek, about a league below Hunting- 
ton, where the high, wooded banks of the little 
tributary offered me protection and rest. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 69 

At an early hour the next morning I was con- 
scious of a change of temperature. It was 
growing colder. A keen wind whistled through 
the tree-tops. I was alarmed at the prospect of 
having my boat fastened in the creek by the con- 
gealing of its waters, so I pushed out upon the 
Ohio and hastened towards a warmer climate as 
fast as oars, muscles, and a friendly current 
would carry me. The shanty-boatmen had in- 
formed me that the Ohio might freeze up in a 
single night, in places, even as near its mouth 
as Cairo. I did not, however, feel so much 
alarmed in regard to the river as I did about its 
tributaries. The Ohio was not likfely to remain 
sealed up for more than a few days at a time, 
but the creeks, my harbors of refuge, my lodg- 
ing-places, might remain frozen up for a long 
time, and put me to serious inconvenience. 

About ten o'clock a.m. the duck-boat crossed 
the mouth of the Big Sandy River, the limit of 
Virginia, and I floated along the shores of the 
grand old state of Kentucky on the left, while 
the immense state of Ohio still skirted the right 
bank of the river. 

The agricultural features of the Ohio valley 
had been increasing in attractiveness with the 
descent of the stream. The high bottom-lands 
of the valley exhibited signs of careful cultiva- 
tion, while substantial brick houses here and 
there dotted the landscape. Interspersed with 



70 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

these were the inevitable log-cabins and clingy 
hovels, speaking plainly of the poverty and shift- 
lessness of some of the inhabitants. 

At four p. M. I could endure the cold no 
longer, and Avhen a beautiful creek with wooded 
shores, w^hich divided fine farms, opened invit- 
ingly before me on the Kentucky side, I quickly 
entered it, and moored the sneak-box to an 
ancient sycamore whose trunk rose out of the 
water twelve feet from shore. I was not a mo- 
ment too soon in leaving the wide river, for as I 
quietly supped on my cold bread and meat, which 
needed no better sauce than my daily increasing 
appetite to make it tempting, the wind increased 
to a tempest, and screeched and howled through 
the forest with such wintry blasts that I was glad 
to creep under my hatch before dark. 

On Monday, December 13, the violent wind 
storm continuing, I remained all day in my box, 
writing letters and watching the scuds flying 
over the tops of high trees. At noon a party of 
hunters, with a small pack of hounds, came ab- 
ruptly upon my camp. Though boys only, they 
carried shot-guns, and expectorated enough 
tobacco-juice to pass for the type of western 
manhood. They chatted pleasantly round m}^ 
boat, though each sentence that fell from their 
lips was emphasized by its accompanying oath. 
I asked them the name of the creek, when one 
replied, " Why, boss, you don't call this a creek, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 7 1 

do you? Why, there is twenty foot of water in 
it. It's the Tiger River, and comes a heap of a 
long way off." Another said, " Look here, cap'n, 
I wouldn't travel alone in that 'ere little skiff, for 
when you're in camp any feller might put a ball 
into you from a high bank." "Yes," added an- 
other, "there is plenty o' folks along the river 
that would do it, too." 

As my camp had become known, I acted upon 
the friendly hint of the boy-hunters, and took my 
departure the next day at an early hour, follow- 
inof the left bank of the river, which afforded me 
a lee shore. As I dashed through the swashy 
waves, with the apron of the boat securely set to 
keep the water from wetting my back, the sun in 
all its grandeur parted the clouds and lighted up 
the landscape until ever3^thing partook of its 
briofhtness. This was the second time in two 
weeks that the God of Day had asserted his su- 
premacy, and his advent was fully appreciated. 

' Two miles below Portsmouth, Ohio, I encoun- 
tered a solitary voyager in a skiff, shooting mal- 
lards about the mouths of the creeks, and having 
discovered that he was a gentleman, I intrusted 
my mail to his keeping, and pushed on to a little 
creek beyond Rome, where, thanks to good for- 
tune, some dry wood was discovered. A bright 
blaze was soon lighting up the darkness of the 
thicket into which I had drawn my boat, and the 
hot supper, now cooked in camp, and served 
without ceremony, was duly relished. 



72 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

The deck of the boat was covered with a thin 
coating of ice, and as the wind went down the 
temperature continued to fall until six o'clock in 
the morning, when I considered it unsafe to lin- 
ger a moment longer in the creek, the surface of 
which was already frozen over, and the ice be- 
coming thicker every hour. An oar served to 
break a passage-way from the creek to the Ohio, 
which I descended in a blusterino- wind, beinor 
frequently driven to seek shelter under the lee 
afforded by points of land. 

At sunset I reached Maysville, where the cel- 
ebrated Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky 
backwoods life, once lived; and as the wind 
began to fall, I pulled into a fine creek about four 
miles below the village, having made twenty- 
nine miles under most discourag-ins: circum- 
Stances. The river was here, as elsewhere, 
lighted b}^ small hand-lanterns hung upon posts. 
The lights were, however, so dull, and, where the 
channel was not devious, at such long intervals, 
that they only added to the gloom. 

As the wind generallyrose and fell with the sun, 
it became necessary to adopt a new plan to expe- 
dite my voyage, and the river being usually smooth 
at dawn of day, an earl}' start was an imperative 
duty. At four o'clock in the morning the duck- 
boat was under way, her captain cheered by the 
hope of arriving in Cincinnati, the great cit}- of 
the Ohio valley, by sunset. I plied my oars vig- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 73 

orously all day, and when darkness settled upon 
the land, was rewarded for my exertions by 
having my little craft shoot under the first bridge 
that connects Cincinnati with Kentucky. Here 
steamers, coal-barges, and river craft of every 
description lined the Ohio as well as the Ken- 
tucky shore. Iron cages filled with burning 
coals were suspended from cranes erected upon 
flatboats for the purpose of lighting the river, 
which was most effectually done, the unwonted 
brilliancy giving to the busy scene a strange 
weirdness, and making a picture never to be 
forgotten. 

The swift current now carried me under the 
suspension-bridge which connects Cincinnati and 
Covington, and my boat entered the dark area 
below, when suddenly the river was clouded in 
snow, as fierce squalls came up the stream, and 
I eagerly scanned the high, dark banks to find 
some inlet to serve as harbor for the night. It 
was ver}^ dark, and I hugged the Kentucky shore 
as closely as I dared. Suddenly a gleam of light, 
like a break in a fog-bank, opened upon my craft, 
and the dim outlines of the sides of a gorge in the 
high coast caught my eye. It was not necessary 
to row into the cleft in the hillside, for a fierce 
blast of the tempest blew me into the little creek; 
nor was my progress stayed until the sneak-box 
was driven several rods into its dark interior, and 
entangled in the branches of a fallen tree. 



74 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Ill the blinding snowfall it was impossible to 
discern anything upon the steep banks of the little 
creek which had fairly forced its hospitality upon 
me; so, carefully fastening my painter to the 
fallen tree, I hastily disappeared below my hatch. 
During the night the mercury fell to six degrees 
above zero, but my quarters were so comforta- 
ble that little inconvenience from the cold was 
experienced until morning, when I attempted to 
make my toilet with an open hatch. Then I dis- 
covered the unpleasant fact that my boat was 
securely frozen up in the waters of the creek! 
Being without a stove, and finding that my canned 
provisions — not having been wrapped in several 
coverings like their owner, and having no power 
to convert oxygen into fuel for warmth — were 
solidifying, I locked my hatch, and scrambled up 
the high banks to seek the comforts of that civil- 
ization which I had so gladly left behind when 
I embarked at a point five hundred miles further 
up the river, thinking as I went what a contrary 
mortal man was, myself among the number, for 
I was as eager now to find my human brother as 
I had been to turn my back upon him a short 
time before. The poetry of solitude was frozen 
into prose, and the low temperature around me 
made life under a roof seem attractive for the 
time being, though, judging from the general 
aspect of things, there w^as not much to look for- 
ward to, in either a social or comfortable light, in 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 75 

my immediate vicinity. I was, however, too cold 
and too hungry to be dainty, and felt like Dick- 
ens's Mrs. Bloss, that I ^^ must have nourish- 
ment." 

A turnpike crossed the ravine a few rods from 
my boat, and the tollgate-keeper informed me 
that I was frozen up in Pleasant Run, near which 
were several small houses. Upon application 
for ^^ hoarding^^ accommodations I discovered 
that breakfast at Pleasant Run was a mova- 
ble feast, that some had already taken it at seven 
A. M., and that others would not have it ready 
till three p. m. This was anything but encour- 
aging to a cold and hungry man; but I at length 
obtained admission to the house of a German 
tailor, and, explaining my condition, offered to 
pay him liberally for the privilege of becoming 
his guest until the cold snap was over. He exam- 
ined me closely, and having made, as it were, a 
mental inventory of my features, dress, &c., ex- 
claimed, " Mine friend, in dese times nobody 
knows who 's which. I say, sar, nobody know^s 
who 's what. Fellers land here and eats mine 
grub, and den shoves off dere poats, and nevar 
says ^tank you, sar,' for mine grub. Since de 
confederate war all men is skamps, I does full}^ 
pelieve. I fights twenty-doo patties for de Union, 
nots for de monish, but because I likes de free 
government; but it is imbossible to feeds all de 
beebles what lands at Pleasant Run." 



76 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

I assured this patriotic tailor and adopted citi- 
zen that I would pay him well for the trouble of 
boarding me, but he answered in a surly way: 

■^ Daf s vat dey all says. It's to be all pay, but 
dey eats up de sour-crout and de fresh pork, and 
drinks de coffee, and ven I looks for de monish, 
de gentlemens has disappeared down de rivver. 
Now you don't looks as much rascal as some of 
dem does, and as it ish cold to-day, I vill make 
dish corntract mid you. You shall stay here till 
de cold goes away, and you shall hab de pest I've 
got for twenty-five cents a meal, but you shall 
pays me de twenty-five cents a meal down in 
advance^ beforehand." 

" Here is a character," I thought, " a new type 
to study, and perhaps, after all, being frozen up 
in Pleasant Run may not be a fact to regret." 

My landlord's proposition was at once accept- 
ed, and I offered to pay him for three meals in 
advance, to which he replied, " Dat dree pays 
at one time was not in de corntract." "You 
have forgotten one point," I said, addressing him 
as he led me to the kitchen, where "mine frau " 
was up to her elbows in work. " And what ish 
dat? " he asked, rather suspiciously eying me. 
" You have not fixed a price for my lodgings." 
" De use of de pedclothes costs me notting, so I 
never charges for de lodgings wen de boarder 
WASHES himself every day," answered mine host. 
Having settled this point, and ordered his wife, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 77 

in commanding terms, " to gib dish man his break- 
fast," he withdrew. The woman treated me very 
kindly, apologizing for her husband's exacting 
demands by assuring me that " Nobody knows 
WHO 's -tvhen nowadays. Seems as if every- 
body had got 'moralized by de war." The coffee 
the good lady made me, though thoroughly 
boiled, was excellent, and I complimented her 
upon it. "Yes," she replied, "my coffee is 
coffee. De 'Merican beeble forgets de coffee 
wen dey makes it, and puts all water. Oh, wishy- 
washy is 'Merican coffee. It's like peas and beans 
ground up. De German beebles won't drink de 

stuff." 

A generous repast of sausage, fresh pork, good 
bread, butter, and coffee, was placed before me, 
when the tailor returned with darkened brow, 
and rudely demanded the whereabouts of my 
boat. " I looks everywhere," he said, " and don't 
finds de poat. Hab you one poat, or hab you 
not?" I carefully described the exact location 
of the sneak-box in the rear of the tollgate-house, 
when he hastily disappeared. The old lady and 
I had fully discussed the wishy-washy coffee 
question, when mine host returned. This time 
he wore a pleasant countenance, and took me 
into his shop, where he introduced me to three 
of his apprentices. At night I was given a bed 
in an unfinished attic, under a shingled roof, 
which was not even ceiled, so the constant 



78 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



draus^hts of air whistlinof throuofh the interstices 
overhead and at the sides of my apartment, kept 
up a ventilation more perfect than was desirable ; 
and I should have suffered from the cold had it 
not been for my German coverlet, v^hich ^vas a 
feather-bed about twenty inches in thickness. 
It, of course, half smothered me, but there 
seemed no choice between that and freezing to 
death, so I patiently accepted my fate. 




j>L j^IGHT UNDER A pERMAN COYERLET. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 79 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

CINCINNATI. — MUSIC AND PORK IN PORKOPOLIS. — THE BIG BONE 
LICK OF FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. — COLONEL CROGHAN'S VISIT TO 
THE LICK. — PORTAGE AROUND THE " FALLS," AT LOUISVILLE, 
KENTUCKY. — STUCK IN THE MUD. — THE FIRST STEAMBOAT OF 
THE WEST. — VICTOR HUGO ON THE SITUATION. — A FREEBOOT- 
ER'S DEN. — WHOOPING AND SAND-HILL CRANES. — THE SNEAK- 
BOX ENTERS THE MISSISSIPPI. 

THE next day being Saturday, and the mer- 
cury still standing at seven degrees above 
zero, I walked to Covington, and crossed the 
suspension-bridge to Cincinnati. It v^as the sea- 
son of the year when the vast pork-packing estab- 
lishments were in full blast, and the amount of 
work done spoke well for western enterprise. 

Pork-raising and pork-packing is one of the 
great industries of the Ohio valley, and the Cin- 
cinnati and Louisville merchants have control of 
the largest portion of the business growing out 

of it. 

When a stranger visits the pork-packing es- 
tablishments of Cincinnati he marvels at the 
immensity and celerity of the various manipula- 
tions, which commence with the killing of a 



8o FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

squealing pig, and the transformation of his hog- 
ship, in a few minutes, into a well-cleaned ani- 
mal, hanging up to cool in a store-room, from 
which he is taken a little later and immediately 
cut up and packed in barrels for market. The 
reader ma}^ have a distaste for statistics, but I can- 
not impress upon him the magnitude of this great 
industry without giving a few reliable figures. 

The number of hogs packed in Cincinnati dur- 
ing the past twenty-one years, from 1853 to 1875, 
was 9,242,972. While Cincinnati was at work 
on one season's crop of pork of 632,302 pigs, her 
rival, Chicago, on the shore of Lake Michigan, 
killed and packed in the same time her crop of 
2,501,285 animals. 

The "Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the 
Cincinnati Price Current," published while the 
author has been writing this chapter, shows what 
our country can do in supplying meat for foreign 
as well as home markets. The states of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, 
Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Ken- 
tucky, and Tennessee, contributed to the pack- 
ing establishments between November i, 1877, 
and March i, 1878, during the winter season of 
six months, 6,505,446 hogs; and during the 
summer season, from March i to Novem- 
ber I, 2,543,120 animals, — making a one year's 
total of 9,048,566 pigs, which averaged a net 
weight, when dressed, of two hundred and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 8 1 

twenty-six pounds. Thus the weight of meat 
alone packed in one year w^as 2,044,975,916 
pounds. Add to this the crop of California, 
Oregon, and Canada of the same year, and the 
total swells to 12,301,589 hogs, duly registered 
as having been killed by the pork-packers, and 
there still remain uncounted all the pigs killed 
in thirty-eight states by farmers for their own 
and neighbors' consumption. 

This annual crop of pork a jocund professor 
once described as " a prodigious mass of 
heavy carburetted hydrogen gas and scrofula;" 
but the chemists of our day ivould more properly 
stigmatize it as avast quantity of Luzic, Myristic, 
Palmitic, Margaric, and Stearic acids in combi- 
nation with glycerine and fibre. 

A western savant, having investigated the par- 
asites existing in hogs, affirms that in western 
pork, eight animals out of every one hundred are 
affected by that muscle-boring pest so danger- 
ous to those who have eaten the infected meat, 
and so well known to all students as the Trichina 
spiralis. The distinguished writer Lethebv 
says of this parasite: "As found in the human 
subject (after death) it is usually in the encyst- 
ed state, when it has passed beyond its dan- 
gerous condition, and has become harmless. 
In most cases, when thus discovered, there is no 
record of its action, and therefore it was once 
thought to be an innocent visitor; but we now 
6 



82 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

know that while it was free, (that is, before nature 
had barricaded it up in the little cyst,) its pres- 
ence was the cause of frightful disorders, killing 
about fifty per centum of its victims in terrible 
agony. The young worms having hatched in 
the body of man, migrate to the numerous 
muscles, causing the most excruciating pain, so 
that the patient, fearing to move his inflamed 
muscles, would lie motionless upon his back, and 
if he did not die in this state of the disorder, 
nature came to the rescue and imprisoned the 
creature by surrounding it with a fibrous cyst, 
where it lives for years, being ready at any mo- 
ment to acquire activity when it is swallowed 
and released from its cell." 

Another parasite found in the muscles of the 
pig is known as the Cysticercus cellulosus^ and 
the animals afflicted by it are said to have the 
measles. This larva of the tapeworm exists in 
the pig in little sacs not larger than a pin's head, 
and can be seen by the naked eye. The strong 
brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have 
known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham. 
The great heat of frying alone renders them harm- 
less. When partially-cooked, measly pork is eaten 
by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves 
the membranous sac which contains the living 
larva, and the animal soon passes into the intes- 
tines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on 
with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 83 

joint after joint, until the perfect tapeworm 
sometimes attains a length of thirty feet. 

Let us hope, for the credit of humanity, that 
these facts are not generally known, for man has 
ills enough without incurring the risks of such a 
diet. If pork must form a staple, let the genea- 
logical tree of his pigship be carefully sought 
after, and let the would-be consumer ask the 
question considered so important in a certain 
river-bounded city of Pennsylvania, " Who was 
his grandfather?" 

In the year 1800 Cincinnati ^vas a little pioneer 
settlement of seven hundred and fifty men, wo- 
men, and children. Her census of 1880 will not 
fall far short of a quarter of a million. She con- 
tributes more than her share to feed the world, 
and is, strange to say, as celebrated for the terp- 
sichorean art as for her pork. Even Boston must 
yield her the palm as a musical centre, and give 
to the inhabitants of the once rough western city 
the credit due them for their versatility of talent, 
and the ease with which they render Beethoven, 
or " take a turn in pork," as occasion may de- 
mand, many of the music-loving citizens being 
engaged at times in a commercial way with this 
staple. 

Having obtained at a bookstore a copy of 
Lloyd's Map of the Mississippi River, I returned 
to the tailor's, where I was greeted in the most 
kindly manner, and informed that the young 



84 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

lady of the house, the only daughter of my host, 
had voluntarily left home to visit some city rela- 
tions, that I might occup}^ her comfortably fur- 
nished room, with the open hreplace, w^hich v^as 
now lilled with blazing wood, and sending forth 
a genial glow into the heavily-curtained apart- 
ment. When I protested against this promotion 
in the social scale, and refused to deprive the 
young lady of her room, I was informed that 
she knew " who was who," and had insisted 
upon leaving her room that a gentleman might 
be properly entertained in it. From this time 
my now agreeable host stoutly refused to accept 
payment in advance for my daily rations, while, 
with his family and apprentices, he took up his 
quarters each evening in my new^ room, relating 
his experiences during the war, and giving me 
many original ideas. 

It grew warmer, but the ice of the creek in 
which my boat lay did not melt. The water w^as, 
however, failing, and it became necessary to cut 
out the sneak-box, and slide her over the ice into 
the unfrozen Ohio. My host had become alarmed, 
and kept an anxious eye upon the boat. " De 
peoples knows de poat is here, and some of dem 
hab told others about it. If you don't hide her 
down de rivver to-night, she will be stolen by de 
rivver thieves." I was thus forced to leave these 
kind people, who about noon escorted me to the 
duck-boat, and showered upon me their best 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 85 

wishes for a prosperous voyage. It was a glori- 
ous afternoon, and the sun poured all his wealth 
of light and cheerfulness upon the valley. 

Late in the day I passed the mouth of the Big 
Miami River. Indiana was on the right, w^hile 
Kentucky still skirted the left bank of the river. 
The state of Ohio had furnished the Ohio River 
with a margin for four hundred and seventy-live 
iniles. The Little Miami River joins the Ohio 
six miles above Cincinnati; the Big Miami en- 
ters it twenty iniles below the city. These 
streams flow through rich farming regions, but 
they are not navigable. After passing the town 
of Aurora, which is six miles below the Big 
Miami, I caught sight of the mouth of a creek, 
whose thickets of trees, in the gloom of the fast 
approaching night, almost hid from view the out- 
lines of a forlorn-looking shanty-boat. Clouds 
of smoke, with the bright glare of the fire, shot 
out of the rusty stove-pipe in the roof, but I soon 
discovered that it was the abode of one who at- 
tended strictly to his own business, and expected 
the same behavior from his neighbors. So, say- 
ing good evening to this man of solitary habits, 
I quickly rowed past his floating hermitage into 
the darkness of the neighboring swamp. I soon 
put my own home in order, ate my supper, and 
retired, feeling happy in the thought that I should 
before long reach a climate where my out-door 
life would not be attended with so many incon- 
veniences. 



86 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

The next day a milder but damper atmosphere 
greeted me. By noon I had rowed twenty-two 
miles, and was off the mouth of Big Bone Lick 
Creek, in Kentucky. Two miles from the mouth 
of this creek are some springs, the waters of 
which are charged with sulphur and salt. The 
most interesting feature of this locality was the 
fact that here were buried in one vast bed the 
fossil bones of " The Mastodon and the Arctic 
Elephant." Formerly these prehistoric relics of 
a departed fauna were scattered over the surface 
of the earth. The first mention of this locality 
was made, I think, by a French explorer in 1649. 
It is again referred to by a British subject in 1765. 
A rare copy of a private journal kept by this early 
explorer of the Ohio, Colonel George Croghan, 
was published in G. W. Featherstonhaugh's 
"American Journal of Geology," of December, 
1 83 1. This monthl}^ publication ended with its 
first year's existence. Only five copies of this 
number were known to be in print three years 
since, when Professor Thomas, of Mount Holly, 
New Jersey, encouraged the issue of a reprint 
of one hundred copies, from which some of our 
public libraries have been supplied. 

This Colonel George Croghan, in company 
with deputies from the Seneca, Shawnesse, and 
Delaware nations, left Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), in 
two bateaux, on the 15th of May, 1765, bound on 
a mission to the Indian tribes of the Ohio valley. 



-v:» 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 87 

On the 29th of the month the expedition reached 
the Little Miami River. Colonel Croghan there 
commences his account of the Big Bone Lick 
region. He says: "May 30th we passed the 
Great Miami River, about thirty miles from the 
little river of that name, and in the evening 
arrived at the -place where the Elephants' 
BONES ARE FOUND, whcn we encamped, intend- 
ing to take a view of the place next morning. 
This day we came about seventy miles. The 
country on both sides level, and rich bottoms, 
well watered. May 31st. Early in the morning 
we went to the great Lick, where those bones 
are only found, about four miles from the river, 
on the south-east side. In our way we passed 
through a fine-timbered, clear wood: we passed 
into a large road, which the buffaloes have 
beaten, spacious enough for two wagons to go 
abreast, and leading straight into the Lick. It 
appears that there are vast quantities of these 
bones lying five or six feet under ground, w^hich 
we discovered in the bank at the edge of the 
Lick. We found here two tusks above six feet 
long; we carried one, with some other bones, to 
our boat, and set off." 

In relation to the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
country of the Ohio valley, it is interesting to 
note that the " Six Nations " held six of the gates 
to New York, and were strong because they were 
united, for Colonel Croghan's enumeration of 



88 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

them shows that they had onl}^ two thousand 
one hundred and twenty fighting-men, and were 
never supported by more than about two thou- 
sand warriors from tributary tribes, when at war 
w^ith the whites. 

That the Iroquois, with their adopted children, 
have not lost in numbers up to the present day, 
is a curious fact. About six thousand of the 
descendants of the ^~ Six Nations " are at For- 
estville, Wisconsin, on government reservations; 
and the official agent reports that nearly two 
thousand of them can read and write; that they 
have twenty-nine day schools, and two manual- 
labor schools; that they cultivate their lands so 
diligently that they pay all the expenses of their 
living. They are reported as advancing in 
church discipline, growing in temperance; and 
are making rapid progress towards a complete 
civilization. 

These six thousand, with other descendants 
of the Iroquois in Canada, will no doubt make 
up a total equal in number to the members of 
the old " Indian Confederacy," so graphically 
pictured in the glowing pages of Mr. Francis 
Parkman, the reliable historian, who has given 
us such vivid descriptions of the French rule in 
America as have called forth the unqualified 
praise of students of American history on both 
sides of the Atlantic. 

Having rowed forty-three miles in twelve 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 89 

hours, I reached the town of Vevay, Indiana, 
which was first settled by a Swiss colony, to 
Avhom Congress granted lands for the purpose 
of encouraging grape-culture. Keeping close 
under the banks of the river, I entered a little 
creek a mile below the village, where a night, 
restful as usual, was passed. 

On Tuesday I rose with the moon, though it 
was as late as live o'clock in the morning; but, 
althouo^h fertile farms were stretched alono^ the 
river's bank, and the land gave every sign of 
careful culture, it was anything but an enjoy- 
able day, as the rain fell in almost uninter- 
rupted showers from eight o'clock a. m. until 
dusk, when I was o'lad to find an invitino^ creek 
on the Kentucky shore, about one mile below 
Bethlehem, and had the great satisfaction of 
logging thirt3'^-eight miles as the day's run. 

It was necessary to make an early start the 
next day, as I must run the falls of the Ohio 
at Louisville, Kentucky, or make a portage 
round them. The river was enveloped in fog; 
but I followed the shore closely, hour after hour, 
until the sun dispelled the mists, and my litde 
duck-boat ran in among: the baro-es at the aTcat 
Kentucky city. Here, at Louisville, is the only 
barrier to safe navigation on the Ohio River. 
These so-called Falls of the Ohio are in fact 
rapids which almost disappear when the river 
is at its full height. At such times, steam- 



90 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

boats, with skilful pilots aboard, safely follow 
the channel, which avoids the rocks of the river. 
During the low stage of the water, navigation is 
entirely suspended. The fall of the current is 
twenty-three feet in two miles. To avoid this 
descent, in low water, and to allow vessels to 
ascend the river at all times, a canal was exca- 
vated along the left shore of the rapids from 
Louisville to Shippingsport, a distance ol two 
miles and a half It was a stupendous enter- 
prise, as the passage was cut almost the entire 
distance through the solid rock, and in some 
places to the great depth of forty feet. 

On the 25th of September, 1816, when Louis- 
ville had a population of three thousand inhab- 
itants, her first steamboat, the Washington, left 
the young city for New Orleans. A second trip 
was commenced by the Washington on March 3, 
181 7. The whole time consumed by the voyage 
from Louisville to New Orleans, including the 
return trip, was forty-one days. The now conti- 
dent Captain Shreve, of the Washington, pre- 
dicted that steamboats would be built which 
could make the passage to New Orleans in ten 
days. I have been a passenger on a steamboat 
which ascended the strong currents of the river 
from New Orleans to Louisville in Jive da3^s; 
while the once pioneer hamlet now boasts a 
population exceeding one hundred thousand 
souls. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 9 1 

As the bow of my little craft grounded upon 
the city levee, a crowd of good-natured men 
gathered round to examine her. From ^ them I 
ascertained that the descent of the rapids could 
not be made without a pilot; and as the limited 
quarters of the sneak-box would not allow any 
addition to her passenger-list, a portage round 
the falls became a necessity. The canal was 
not to be thought of, as it would have been a 
troublesome matter, without special passes from 
some official, to have obtained the privilege of 
passing through with so small a boat. The 
crowd cheerfully lifted the sneak-box into an 
express-wagon, and fifteen minutes after reach- 
ing Louisville I was en route for Portland, mail- 
ing letters as I passed through the city. The 
portage was made in about an hour. At sun- 
set the little boat was launched in the Ohio, 
and I felt that I had returned to an old friend. 
The expressman entered w^ith entire sympathy 
into the voyage, and could not be prevailed 
upon to accept more than a dollar and a half 
for transporting the boat and her captain four 
miles. 

When night came on, and no friendly creek 
offered me shelter, I pushed the boat into a 
soft, muddy flat of willows, which fringed a por- 
tion of the Kentucky shore, where there was just 
enough water to float the sneak-box. The pass- 
ing steamers during the night sent swashy 



92 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

waves into my lair, which kept me in constant 
fear of a ducking, and gave me anything but 
a peaceful night. This was, however, all for- 
gotten the next morning, when the startling 
discover}^ was made that the river had fallen 
during the night and left me in a quagmire, 
from which it seemed at first impossible to 
extricate myself. 

The boat was imbedded in the mud, which 
was so soft and slimy that it would not sup- 
port my weight when I attempted to step upon 
it for the purpose of pushing my little craft 
into the water, which had receded only a few 
feet from my camp. I tried pushing with my 
oak oar; but it sunk into the mire almost out 
of sight. Then a small watch-tackle was rigged, 
one block fastened to the boat, the other to the 
limb of a willow which projected over the water. 
The result of this was a successful downward 
movement of the willow, but the boat remained 
in statu quo, the soft mud holding it as though 
it possessed the sucking powers of a cuttle- 
fish. 

I could not reach the firm shore, for the wil- 
low brush would not support my weight. There 
was no assistance to be looked for from fellow- 
voyagers, as the river-craft seemed to follow the 
channel of the opposite shore; and my camp 
could not be seen from the river, as I had taken 
pains to hide myself in the thicket of young 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 93 

willows from all curious eyes. There was no 
hope that my voice would penetrate to the other 
side of the stream, neither could I reach the 
water beyond the soft ooze. Being well pro- 
visioned, however, it would be an easy matter 
to await the rise of the river; and if no friend- 
ly freshet sent me the required assistance, the 
winds would harden the ooze in a few days so 
that it would bear my weight, and enable me to 
escape from my bonds of mud. 

While partaking of a light breakfast, an idea 
suddenly presented itself to my mind. I had fre- 
quently built crossways over treacherous swamps. 
Wh}^ not mattress the muddy flat? Standing upon 
the deck of my boat, I grasped every twig and 
bough of willow I could reach, and making a 
mattress of them, about two feet square and a 
few inches thick, on the surface of the mud at 
the stern of my craft, I placed upon it the hatch- 
cover of my boat. Standing upon this, the sneak- 
box was relieved of my weight, and by dint of 
persevering eflbrt the after part was successfully 
lifted, and the heavy burden slowly worked out 
of its tenacious bed, and moved two or three 
feet nearer the water. By shifting the willow 
mattress nearer the boat, which was now on the 
surface of the mud, and not in it, my floating 
home was soon again upon the current, and its 
captain had a new experience, which, though 
dearly bought, would teach him to avoid in 



94 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

future a camp on a soft flat when a river was 
fallino^. 

A foggy day followed my departure from the 
unfortunate camp of willows; but through the 
mist I caught glimpses of the fine lands of the 
Kentucky farmers, with the grand old trees 
shading their comfortable homes. In the driz- 
zle I had passed French's Creek, and after dark 
ran upon a stony beach, where, high and dry 
upon the bank, was a shanty-boat, w^hich had 
been converted into a landing-house, and was 
occupied by two men who received the freight 
left there by passing steamers. The locality 
was six miles below Brandenburg, Kentucky, 
and was known as " Richardson's Landing." 
Having rowed forty miles since morning, I 
"turned in" soon after drawing my boat upon 
the shelving strand, anticipating a quiet night. 

At midnight a loud noise, accompanied with 
bright flashes of light, warned me of the ap- 
proach of a steamboat. She soon after ran her 
bow hard on to the beach, within a few feet of 
my boat. Though the rain was falling in tor- 
rents, the passengers crowded upon the upper 
deck to examine the snow-white, peculiarly 
shaped cratl, or "skifl'" as they called it, which 
lay upon the bank, little suspecting that her 
owner was snugly stowed beneath her deck. 
I suddenly threw up the hatch and sat upright, 
while the strong glare of light from the steam- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 95 

er's furnaces brought out every detail of the 
boat's interior. 

This sudden apparition struck the crowd with 
surprise, and, as is usual upon such an occasion 
in western America, the whole company show- 
ered a fire of raillery and "chaff" upon me, to 
which, on account of the heavy rain, I could 
not reply, but, dropping backward into my bed, 
drew the hatch into its place. The good-natured 
crowxl would not permit me to escape so easily. 
Calling the entire ship's company from the state- 
rooms and cabins to join them, they used every 
artifice in their power to induce me to show 
ni}' head above the deck of my boat. One 
shouted, " Here, you deck-hand, don't cut that 
man's rope; it's mean to steal a fellow's painter!" 
Another cried, " Don't put that heavy plank 
against that little skiff!" Suspecting their game, 
however, I kept under cover during the fifteen 
minutes' stay of the boat, when, moving off, 
they all shouted a jolly farewell, which mingled 
in the darkness with the hoarse whistle of the 
steamer, while the night air echoed with cries 
of, '^ Snug as a bug in a rug;" "I never seed 
the like afore;" "He'll git used to livin' in a 
coffin afore he needs one," &c. 

The reader who may have looked heretofore 
upon swamps and gloomy creeks as too lonely 
for camping-grounds, may now appreciate the 
necessity for selecting such places, and under- 



g6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

stand why a voyager prefers the security of the 
wilderness to the annoying curiosity of his fel- 
low-man. 

The rains of the past two da3'"s had swollen 
the Kentucky River, which enters the Ohio 
above Louisville, as well as the Salt River, 
which I had passed twenty miles below that 
city, besides many other branches, so that the 
inain stream was now rapidly rising. After 
leaving Richardson's Landing, the rain contin- 
ued to fall, and as each tributary, affected by 
the freshet, poured logs, fallen trees, fence-rails, 
stumps from clearings, and even occasionally a 
small frame shanty, into the Ohio, there was a 
floatincr raft of these materials miles in lens^th. 
Sometimes an unlucky shanty-boat was caught 
in an eddy by the mass of floating timber, and 
at once becoming an integral portion of the 
whole, would float with the great raft for two 
or three days. The owners, being in the mean 
time unable to free themselves from their prison- 
like surroundings, made the best of the block- 
ade, and their flres burned all the brighter, 
while the enlivening music of the fiddle, and 
the hilarity induced by frequent potions of corn 
whiskey, with the inevitable games of cards, 
made all ^^ merry as a marriage bell," as the}'^ 
floated down the river. 

In the evening, a little creek below Alton 
was reached, which sheltered me during the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX, 97 

niofht. Soon the rain ceased, and the stars shone 
kindly upon my lonely camp, I left the creek 
at half-past fom- o'clock in the morning. The 
water had risen two feet and a half in ten hours, 
and the broad river was in places covered from 
shore to shore with drift stuff, which made my 
course a devious one, and the little duck-boat 
had many a narrow escape in my attempts to 
avoid the floating mass. The booming of guns 
alone the shore reminded me that it was Christ- 
mas, and, in imagination, I pictured to myself the 
many happy families in the valley enjoying their 
Christmas cheer. The contrast between their 
condition and mine was great, for I could not 
even find enough dry wood to cook my simple 
camp-fare. 

An hour before sunset, while skirting the In- 
diana shore, I passed a little village called Bates- 
ville, and soon after came to the mouth of a 
crooked creek, out of which, borne on the flood 
of a freshet, came a long, narrow line of drift 
stuff. Just within the mouth of the creek, in 
a deep indenture of the high bank, a shanty- 
boat was snugly lashed to the trees. A young 
man stood in the open doorway of the cabin, 
washing dishes, and as I passed he kindly wished 
me a "Merry Christmas," inviting me on board. 
He eagerly inspected the sneak-box, and pro- 
nounced it one of the prettiest "tricks" afloat. 
" How my father and brother would like to see 

7 



98 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

you and your boat ! " exclaimed he. " Can't 
you tie up here, just under yonder p'int on the 
bank? There's an eddy there, and the drift 
won't work in enough to trouble 3^ou." 

The invitation so kindly given was accepted, 
and with the assistance of my new acquaintance 
my boat was worked against the strong current 
into a curve of the bank, and there securely 
fastened. I set to work about my house-keep- 
ing cares, and had m}' cabin comfortably ar- 
ranged for the night, when I was hailed from the 
shanty-boat to " come aboard." Entering the 
rough cabin, a surprise greeted me, for a table 
stood in the centre of the room, covered with 
a clean white cloth, and groaning under the 
weight of such a variety of appetizing dishes as 
I had not seen for many a day. 

"I thought," said the boy, "that 3^ou hadn't 
had much Christmas to-da}^, being as youVe 
away from your folks; and we had a royal 
dinner, and there's lots left fur you — so help 
yourself." He then explained that his father 
and brother had gone to a shooting-match on 
the other side of the river; and when I ex- 
pressed my astonishment at the excellent fare, 
which, upon closer acquaintance, proved to be 
of a dainty nature (game and delicate pastry 
making a menu rather peculiar for a shanty- 
boat), he informed me that his brother had 
been first cook on a big passenger steamer, and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 99 

had received good wages; but their mother 
died, and their father married a second time, 
and — Here the young fellow paused, evidently 
considering how much of their private life he 
should show^ to a stranger. "Well," he con- 
tinued, " our new mother liked cities better than 
flatboats, and father 's a good quiet man, who 
likes to live in peace with every one, so he lets 
mother live in Arkansas, and he sta3^s on the 
shanty-boat. We boys joined him, fur he 's a 
good old fellow, and we have all that's going. 
We git plenty of cat-fish, buffalo-fish, yellow 
perch, and bass, and sell them at the little 
towns alonof the river. Then in summer we 
hire a high flat ashore, — not a flatboat, — I 
mean a bit of land along the river, and raise 
a crop of corn, 'taters, and cabbage. We have 
plenty of shooting, and don't git much fever 
'n ager." 

I had rowxd fifty-three miles that day, and 
did ample justice to the Christmas dinner on 
the flatboat. The father and brother joined us 
in the evening, and gave me much good advice 
in regard to river navigation. The rain fell 
heavily before midnight, and they insisted that 
I should share one of their beds in the boat; 
but as small streams of water were trickling 
through the roof of the shanty, and my little 
craft was water-tight, I declined the kindly 
ofler, and bade them good-night. 



lOO FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

The next clay being Sunday, I again visited 
my new acquaintances upon the shanty-boat, 
and gathered from their varied experiences 
much of the river's lore. The rain contin- 
ued, accompanied with lightning and thunder, 
during the entire da}^, so that Monday's sun 
was indeed welcome; and with kind farewells 
on all sides I broke camp and descended the 
current with the no\v almost continuous raft of 
drift-wood. For several hours a sewing-machine 
repair-shop and a photographic gallery floated 
with me. 

The creeks were now so swollen from the 
heavy rains, and so full of drift-wood, that my 
usual retreat into some creek seemed cut off; 
so I ran under the sheltered side of """^ Three 
Mile Island," below Newburg, Indiana. The 
climate was daily improving, and I no longer 
feared an ice blockade; but a new difficulty 
arose. The heavy rafts of timber threatened to 
shut me in my camp. At dusk, all might be 
open water; but at break of day "a change came 
o'er the spirit of my dream," and heavy block- 
ades of timber rafts made it no easy matter to 
escape. There wxre times when, shut in behind 
these barriers, I looked out upon the river with 
envious eyes at the steamboats steadily plod- 
ding up stream against the current, keeping free 
of the rafts by the skill of their pilots; and 
thoughts of the genius and perseverance of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. lOI 

the inventors of these peculiar craft crowded 
my mind. 

In these days of successful application of me- 
chanical inventions, but few persons can realize 
the amount of distrust and opposition against 
w^iich a Watts or a Fulton had to contend 
while forcing upon an illiberal and unappreci- 
ative public the valuable results of their busy 
brains and fertile genius. It is well for us w^ho 
now enjoy these blessings, — the utilized ideas of 
a lifetime of unrequited labors, — to look back 
upon the epoch of histor}' so full of gloom for 
the men to whom we owe so much. 

At the beginning of the present century the 
navigation of the Ohio was limited to canoes, 
bateaux, scows, rafts, arks, and the rudest 
models of sailing-boats. The ever downward 
course of the strono current must be stemmed 
in ascending the river. Against this powerful 
resistance upon tortuous streams, wind, as a 
motor, was found to be only partially success- 
ful, and for sure and rapid transit between 
settlements alono' the banks of ^rreat water- 
ways a most discouraging failure. Down-river 
journeys wxre easil}' made, but the up-river or 
return trip was a very slow and unsatisfactory 
affair, excepting to those who travelled in light 
canoes. 

.The influx of population to the fertile Ohio 
valley, and the settling up of the rich bottoms 



I02 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

of the Mississippi, demanded a more expedi- 
tious system of communication. The neces- 
sities of the people called loudly for this im- 
provement, but at the same time their prejudices 
and ignorance prevented them from aiding or 
encouraging any such plans. The hour came at 
length for the delivery of the people of the great 
West, and w'ith it the man. Fulton, aided by 
Watts, offered to solve the problem by unravel- 
ling rather than by cutting the ^^Gordian knot." 
It w^as whispered through the wilderness that a 
fire-ship, called the " Clermont," built by a crazy 
speculator named Fulton, had started from New 
York, and, steaming up the Hudson, had forced 
itself against the current one hundred and fifty 
miles to Albany, in thirty-six hours. This was 
in September, 1807. 

The fool and the fool's fire-ship became the 
butt of all sensible people in Europe as well as 
in America. Victor Hugo remarks that, "^^In the 
year 1807, when the first steamboat of Fulton, 
commanded by Livingston, furnished with one 
of Watts's eno^ines sent from Enoland, and 
manoeuvred, besides her ordinary crew, by two 
Frenchmen only, Andre Michaux and another, 
made her first voyage from New York to Albany, 
it happened that she set sail on the 17th of Au- 
gust. The ministers took up this important fact, 
and in numberless chapels preachers were heard 
calling down a malediction on the machine, and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 03 

declaring that this number seventeen was no 
other than the total of the ten horns and seven 
heads of the beasts in the Apocalypse. In Amer- 
ica they invoked against the steamboat the beast 
from the book of Revelation; in Europe, the rep- 
tile of the book of Genesis. The savans had 
rejected steamboats as impossible; the priests 
had anathematized them as impious; science 
had condemned, and religion consigned them 
to perdition." 

^^ In the archipelago of the British Channel is- 
lands/^ this learned author goes on to say, " the 
first steamboat w^hich made its appearance re- 
ceived the name of the '^ Devil Boat.' In the eyes 
of these worthy fishermen, once Catholics, now 
Calvinists, but always bigots, it seemed to be a 
portion of the infernal regions which had been 
somehow set afloat. A local preacher selected 
for his discourse the question of, ^ Whether man 
has the rio^ht to make tire and water w^ork tosfether 
when God had divided them.' (Gen. ch. i. v. 4.) 
No; this beast composed of iron and lire did not 
resemble leviathan! Was it not an attempt to 
brinof chaos as^ain into the universe? " 

So much for 3^oung America, and so much for 
old mother England ! Now listen, men and women 
of to-day, to the wisdom of France — scientific 
France, " A mad notion, a gross delusion, an 
absurdity! " Such was the verdict of the Acad- 
emy of Sciences when consulted by Napoleon 



I04 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

on the subject of steamboats early in the present 
century. 

It seems scarcely credible now that all this 
transpired in the days of our fathers, not so very 
long ago. Time is a great leveller. Education 
of the head as well as of the heart has liberalized 
the pulpit, and the man of theoretical science to- 
day would not dare to stake his reputation by 
denying any apparently well-established theory, 
while the inventors of telephones, perpetual- 
motion motors, &c., are gladly hailed as leaders 
in the march of progress so dear to every Amer- 
ican heart. The pulpit is now on the side of 
honest science, and the savant teaches great 
truths, while the public mind is being educated 
to receive and utilize the heretofore concealed 
or undeveloped mysteries of a w^ise and generous 
Creator, who has taught his children that they 
must labor in order to possess. 

The Clermont was the pioneer steamer of the 
Hudson River, and its trial trip was made in 
1807. The first steamboat which descended the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers was christened the 
" New Orleans." It was designed and built by 
Mr. N. J. Roosevelt, and commenced its voyage 
from Pittsburgh in September, 181 1. The bold 
proprietor of this enterprise, with his wile, Mrs. 
Lydia M. Roosevelt, accompanied the captain, 
engineer, pilot, six hands, two female servants, a 
man waiter, a cook, and a large Newfoundland 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I05 

clog, to the end of the .vo3^age. The friends of 
this lady — the first woman who descended the 
great rivers of the West in a steamboat — used 
every argument they could offer to dissuade her 
from undertaking what was considered a danger- 
ous experiment, an absolute folly. The good 
wife, however, clung to her husband, and ac- 
cepted the risks, preferring to be drowned or 
blown up, as her friends predicted, rather than 
to desert her better-half in his hour of trial. A 
few weeks would decide his success or failure, 
and she would be at his side to condole or rejoice 
with him, as the case might be. 

The citizens of Pittsburgh gathered upon the 
banks of the Monongahela to witness the incep- 
tion of the enterprise which was to change the 
whole destiny of the West. One can imagine 
the criticisms flung at the departing steamer as 
she left her moorings and boldly faced her fate. 
As the curious craft was borne along the current 
of the river, the Indians attempted to approach 
her, bent upon hostile attempts, and once a party 
of them pursued the boat in hot chase, but their 
endurance was not equal to that of steam. These 
children of the forest gazed upon the snorting, 
fire-breathing monster with undisguised awe, and 
called it " Penelore '' — the fire-canoe. They 
imagined it to have close relationship with the 
comet that they believed had produced the earth- 
quakes of that year. The voyage of the " New 



Io6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Orleans " was a romantic reality in two ways. 
The wonderful experiment was proved a success, 
and its originator won his laurel wreath; while 
the bold captain of the iire-ship, falling in love 
with one of the chambermaids, won a wife. 

The river's travel now became somewhat mo- 
notonous. I had reached a low country, heavily 
wooded in places, and was entering the great 
prairie region of Illinois. Having left my island 
camp by starlight on Tuesday morning, and hav- 
ing rowed steadily all day until dusk, I passed the 
wild-looking mouth of the Wabash River, and 
w^ent into camp behind an island, logging with 
pleasure my day's run at sixty-seven miles. I 
was now only one hundred and forty-two miles 
from the mouth of the Ohio, and.with the rising 
and rapidly increasing current there were only 
a few hours' travel between me and the Missis- 
sippi. 

Wednesday morning, December 29th, I dis- 
covered that the river had risen two feet dur- 
ing the night, and the stump of the tree to 
which I had moored my boat was submerged. 
The river was wide and the banks covered with 
heavy forests, with clearings here and there, 
which afforded attractive vistas of prairies in the 
background. I passed a bold, stratified crag, 
covered with a little growth of cedars. These 
adventurous trees, growing out of the crevices of 
the rock, formed a picturesque covering for its 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I07 

rough surface. A cavern, about thirty feet in 
width, penetrated a short distance into the rock. 
This natural curiosity bore the name of '" Cave- 
in-Rock," and was, in 1801, the rendezvous of a 
band of outlaws, who lived by plundering the 
boats going up and down the river, oftentimes 
adding the crime of murder to their other mis- 
deeds. Just below the cliff nestled a little village 
also called " Cave-in-Rock." 

Wild birds flew about me on all sides, and had 
I cared to lino^er I mio'ht have had a o^ood bas: of 
game. This Avas not, however, a gunning cruise, 
and the temptation was set aside as inconsistent 
with the systematic pulling which alone would 
take me to my goal. The birds were left for my 
quondam friends of the shanty-boat, they being 
the happy possessors of more time than they 
could well handle, and the killing of it the aim 
of their existence. 

The soft shores of alluvium were constantly 
caving and falling into the river, bringing down 
tons of earth and tall forest-trees. The latter, 
after freeing their roots of the soil, would be 
swept out into the stream as contributions to the 
great floating raft of drift-wood, a large portion 
of which was destined to a long voyage, for 
much of this floating forest is carried into the 
Gulf of Mexico, and travels over many hundreds 
of miles of salt water, until it is washed up on to 
the strands of the isles of the sea or the beaches 
of the continent. 



Io8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Having tied up for the night to a low bank, 
with no thought of danger, it was startling, to 
say the least, to have an avalanche of earth from 
the bank above deposit itself upon my boat, so 
effectuallv sealino' down my hatch-cover that it 
seemed at first impossible to break from my 
prison. After repeated trials I succeeded in dis- 
lodging the mass, and, thankful to escape prema- 
ture interment, at once pushed off in search of 
a better camp. 

A creek soon appeared, but its entrance was 
barred by a large tree which had fallen across its 
mouth. My heavy hatchet now proved a friend 
in need, and putting my boat close to the tree, I 
went systematically to work, and soon cut out a 
section five feet in length. Entering through this 
gateway, my labors were rewarded by finding 
upon the bank some dry fence-rails, with which 
a rude kitchen was soon constructed to protect 
me from the wind while preparing my meal. 
The unusual luxury of a fire brightened the weird 
scene, and the flames shot upward, cheering the 
lone voyager and frightening the owls and coons 
from their accustomed lairs. The strono^ current 
had been of great assistance, for that night my 
log registered sixty-two miles for the day's row. 

Leaving the creek the next morning by star- 
light, I passed large flocks of geese and ducks, 
while Whooping-cranes (^Grus Americanus) 
and Sand-hill cranes (^Grus Cafiadensis), in little 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I09 

flocks, dotted the grassy prairies, or flew from 
one ^wamp to another, filling the air with their 
startling cries. Both these species are found 
associated in flocks upon the cultivated prairie 
farms, where they pillage the grain and vegetable 
fields of the farmer. Their habits are somewhat 
similar, though theWhooping-crane is the most 
wary of the two. The adult Whooping-cranes 
are white, the younger birds of a brownish color. 
This species is larger than the Sand-hill Crane, 
the latter having a total length of from forty to 
forty-two inches. The Sand-hill species may 
be distinguished from the Whooping-crane by its 
slate-blue color. The cackling, whooping, and 
screaming voices of an assembled multitude of 
these birds cannot be described. They can be 
heard for miles upon the open plains. These 
birds are found in Florida and along the Gulf 
coast as well as over large areas of the northern 
states. They feed upon soft roots, which they 
excavate from the swamps, and upon bugs and 
reptiles of all kinds. It requires the most cau- 
tious stalking on the part of the hunter to get 
within gunshot of them, and when so approached 
the Whooping-crane is usually the first of the two 
species which takes to the wing. The social 
customs of these birds are most entertaining to 
the observer who may lie hidden in the grass 
and watch them through a glass. Their tall, an- 
gular figures, made up of so much wing, leg, 



no FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

neck, and bill, counterpoised by so little body, 
incline the spectator to look upon them as orni- 
thological caricatures. After balancing himself 
upon one foot for an hour, with the other drawn up 
close to his scanty robe of feathers, and his head 
poised in a most contemplative attitude, one of 
these queer birds will suddenly turn a somersault, 
and, returning to his previous posture, continue 
his cogitations as though nothing had interrupted 
his reflections. With wings spread, they slowly 
winnow the air, rising or hopping from the ground 
a few feet at a time, then whirling in circles upon 
their toes, as though going through the mazes of 
a dance. Their most popular diversion seems to 
be the game of leap-frog, and their long legs 
being specially adapted to this sport, they achieve 
a wonderful success. One of the birds quietly as- 
sumes a squattmg position upon the ground, when 
his sportive companions hop in turn over his 
expectant head. They then pirouette, turn som- 
ersaults, and go through various exercises with 
the skill of gymnasts. Their sportive proclivities 
seem to have no bounds; and being true humor- 
ists, they preserve through their gambols a ridic- 
ulously sedate appearance. Popular accounts of 
the nidification of these birds are frequently un- 
true. We are told that they build their cone- 
shaped nests of mud, sticks, and grass in shallow 
water, in colonies, and that their nests, being 
PLACED ON RAFTS of buoyant material, float 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. Ill 

about in the bayous, and are propelled and guided 
at the will of the sitting bird by the use of her 
lono- le^s and feet as oars. The position of the 
bird upon the nest is also ludicrously depicted. 
It is described as sitting astride the nest, with the 
toes touching the ground; and to add still more 
comicality to the picture, it is asserted that the 
limbs are often thrust out horizontally behind the 
bird. The results of close observations prove 
that these accounts are in keeping with many 
others related by parlor naturalists. The cranes 
sit upon their nests like other birds, with their 
feet drawn up close to the body. The mound- 
shaped nests are built of sticks, grass, and mud, 
and usually placed in a shallow pond or partially 
submerged swamp, while at times a grassy has- 
sock furnishes the foundation of the structure. 
In the saucer-shaped top of the nest two eggs 
are deposited, upon which the bird sits most 




Popular Jdea of the THesting of Pranes. 



112 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

assiduously, having no time at this season for 
aquatic amusements, such as paddling about with 
her nest. 

The young birds are most hilarious babies, for 
they inherit the social qualities of their parents, 
and are ready to play or fight with each other 
before they are fairly out of the nest. A close 
observer of their habits writes from the prairies 
of Indiana: "When the young get a little 
strength they attack each other with great fury, 
and can only be made to desist by the parent 
bird separating them, and taking one under its 
fostering care, and holding them at a respectable 
distance until tliey reach crane-hood^ w^hen they 
seem to make up in joyous hilarity for the quar- 
relsome proclivities of youth." 

Like geese and ducks, cranes winter in one 
locality so long as the ponds are open, but the first 
cold snap that freezes their swamp drives them 
two or three degrees further south. From this 
migration they soon return to their old haunts, 
the first thawing of the ice being the signal. 

The mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland 
rivers were passed, and the Ohio, widening in 
places until it seemed like a lake, assumed a new 
grandeur as it approached the Mississippi. Three 
miles below Wilkinsonville, but on the Kentucky 
side, I stole into a dark creek and rested until 
the next morning, Friday, December 31st, w-hich 
was to be my last day on the Ohio River. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. II3 

I entered a long reach in the river soon after 
nine o'clock on Friday morning, and could 
plainly see the town of Cairo, resting upon the 
flat prairies in the distance. The now yellow, 
muddy current of the Ohio rolled along the great 
railroad dike, which had cost one million dollars 
to erect, and formed a barrier stronor enousrh to 
resist the rushing waters of the freshets. Across 
the southern apex of this prairie city could be 
seen the " Father of Waters," its wide surface 
bounded on the west by the wilderness. A few 
moments more, and my little craft was whirled 
into its rapid, edd3'ing current; and with the 
boat's prow now pointed southward, I com- 
menced, as it were, a life of new experiences as 
I descended the great river, where each day I 
was to feel the genial influences of a warmer 
climate. 

The thought of entering warm and sunny re- 
gions was, indeed, welcome to a man who had 
forced his way through rafts of ice, under cloudy 
skies, through a smoky atmosphere, and had par- 
taken of food of the same chilling temperature 
for so many days. This prospect of a genial 
clime, with the more comfortable camping and 
rowing it w^as sure to bring, gave new vigor to 
my arms, daily growing stronger with their task, 
and each long, steady pull told as it swept me 
down the river. 

The faithful sneak-box had carried me more 
8 



114 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



than a thousand miles since I entered her at Pitts- 
burgh. This, of course, includes the various 
detours made in searching for camping-grounds, 
frequent crossings of the wide river to avoid drift 
stuff, &c. The descent of the Ohio had occu- 
pied about t^vent3''-nine days, but man}'^ hours 
had been lost by storms keeping me in camp, 
and other unav^oidable delays. As an offset to 
these stoppages, it must be remembered that the 
current, increased by freshets, was with me, and 
to it, as much as to the industrious arms of the 
rower, must be given the credit for the long 
route gone over in so short a time, by so small 
a boat. 





^TERN-WHEEL. WESTERN ToW^-BOAT PUSHING FeATBOATS. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. II5 




CHAPTER VI. 

DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 

LEAVE CAIRO, ILLINOIS. — THE LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD. 
— BOOK GEOGRAPHY AND DOAT GEOGRAPHY. — CHICKASAW 
BLUFF. — MEETING WITH THE PARAKEETS. — FORT DONALD- 
SON. — EARTHQUAKES AND LAKES. — WEIRD BEAUTY OF REEL- 
FOOT LAKE. — JOE ECKEL'S BAR. — SHANTY-BOAT COOKING. — 
FORT PILLOW. — MEMPHIS. — A NEGRO JUSTICE. — " DE COMMON 
LAW OB MISSISSIPPI." 

Y floating home was now upon the broad 
Mississippi, which text-book geographers 
still insist upon calling "the Father of Waters — 
the largest river in North America." Its cur- 
rent was about one-third faster than that of its 
tributary, the Ohio. Its banks were covered 
with heavy forests, and for miles along its 
course the great wilderness w^as broken only by 
the half-tilled lands of the cotton-planter. 

From Cairo southward the river is very tort- 
uous, turning back upon itself as if imitating the 
convolutions of a cravv'ling serpent, and iollow- 
insr a channel of more than eleven hundred and 
fifty miles before its waters unite with those of 
the Gulf of Mexico. This country between the 
mouth of the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico is 



Il6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

truly the delta of the Mississippi, for the river 
north of Cairo, cuts through table-lands, and is 
confined to its old bed; but below the mouth 
of the Ohio the great river persistently seeks 
for new channels, and, as we approach New Or- 
leans, we discover branches which carry off a 
considerable portion of its water to the Gulf 
coast in southwestern T Louisiana. 

It is always with some degree of hesitation 
that I introduce geographical details into my 
books, as I well know that a taste for the study 
of ph3^sical geography has not been developed 
among my countrymen. Where among all our 
colleges is there a well-supported chair of 
physical geography occupied by an American? 
We sometimes hear of a "^^ Professor of Geol- 
ogy and Physical Geography,'' but the last is 
only a sort of appendage — a tail — to the for- 
mer. When a student of American geography 
begins the "study in earnest, he discovers that 
our geographies are insufficient, are filled with 
errors, and that our maps possess a greater 
number of inaccuracies than truths. When he 
goes into the field to study the physical geog- 
raphy of his native land, he is forced to go 
through the disagreeable process of unlearning 
all he has been taught from the poor text- 
books of stay-at-home travellers and closet 
students, whose compilations have burdened his 
mind with errors. In despair he turns to the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I17 

topographical charts and maps of the ^'United 
States Coast and Geodetic Survey," and of the 
"Engineer Corps of the United States Army," 
and in the truthful and interesting results of the 
practical labors of trained observers he takes 
courage as he enters anew his field of study. 
The cartographer of the shop economically con- 
structs his unreliable maps to supply a cheap 
demand; and strange to say, though the results 
of the government surveys are freely at his dis- 
posal, he rarely makes use of them. It costs 
too much to alter the old map-plates, and but 
few persons will feel sufficiently interested to 
criticise the faults of his latest edition. 

"How do you get the interior details?" I once 
asked the agent of one of the largest map estab- 
lishments in the United States. "Oh," he an- 
swered, "when we cannot get township details 
from local surveys, we sling them in anyhow." 
An error once taught from our geographies and 
maps will remain an error for a generation, and 
our text-book geographers will continue to re- 
peat it, for they do not travel over the countries 
they describe, and rarely adopt the results of 
scientific investigation. The most unpopular 
study in the schools of the United States is 
that of the geography of our country. It does 
not amount merely to a feeling of indifference, 
but in some colleges to a positive prejudice. 
The chief mountain-climbincr club of America, 



Il8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

counting among its members some of the best 
minds of our day, was confronted by this very 
prejudice. " If you introduce the study of 
physical geography in connection with the ex- 
plorations of mountains, I will not join your 
association," said a gentleman living almost 
within the shadow of the buildings of our old- 
est university. 

A committee of Chinese who called upon the 
school authorities of a Pacific-coast city, sev- 
eral years since, respectfully petitioned that 
'^you will not waste the time of our children 
in teaching them geography. You say the 
world is round; some of us say it is flat. 
What difference does it make to our business 
if it be round or flat? The study of geogra- 
ph}^ will not help us to make money. It may 
do for Melican man, but it is not good for 
Chinese." 

I once knew a chairman of the school trus- 
tees in a town in New Jersey to remove his 
daughters from the public school simply be- 
cause the teacher insisted that it was his duty 
to instruct his pupils in the study of geogra- 
phy. " My boys may go to sea some day, 
and then geography may be of service to 
them," said this chairman to the teacher, "but 
if my daughters study it they will waste their 
;time. Of what use can geography be to girls 
who will never command a vessel?" 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. II9 

While conscious that I may inflict an unin- 
teresting chapter upon my reader who may have 
accompanied me with a commendable degree 
of patience so far upon my lonely voyage, I 
nevertheless feel it a duty to place on record a 
few facts that are well known to scientific men, 
if not to the writers of popular geographies, 
reo-ardinof the existence within the boundaries 
of our own country of the longest river in the 
world. It is time that the recognition of this 
fact should be established in every school in 
the United States. As this is a very impor- 
tant subject, let us examine it in detail. 

The Missouri is the longest river in 

THE world, and THE MISSISSIPPI IS ONLY A 

BRANCH OF IT. The Mississippi River joins its 
current with that of the Missouri about two 
hundred miles above the mouth of the Ohio; 
consequently, as we are now to allow the largest 
stream (the Missouri) to bear its name from 
its source all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, it 
follows that the Ohio flows into the Missouri 
and not into the Mississippi River. The Mis- 
souri, and NOT the Mississippi, is the main stream 
of what has been called the Mississippi Basin. 
The Missouri, when taken from its fountain- 
heads of the Gallatin, Madison, and Red Rock 
lakes, or, if we take the Jefferson Fork as the 
principal tributary, has a length, from its source 
to its union with the Mississippi, of above three 



I20 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

thousand miles. The United States Topograph- 
ical Engineers have credited it with a length 
of two thousand nine hundred and eight miles, 
when divested of some of these tributary exten- 
sions. The same good authority gives the Mis- 
sissippi a length of thirteen hundred and thirty 
miles from its source to its junction with the 
Missouri. 

At this junction of the two rivers the Mis- 
souri has a mean discharge of one hundred and 
twent}^ thousand cubic feet of water per sec- 
ond, or one-seventh greater than that of the 
Mississippi, which has a mean discharge of 
one hundred and five thousand cubic feet per 
second. The Missouri drains five hundred and 
eighteen thousand square miles of territor}^, 
w^hile the Mississippi drains only one hundred 
and sixty-nine thousand square miles. While 
the latter river has by far the greatest rainfall, 
the Missouri discharges the largest amount of 
water, and at the point of union of the two 
streams is from fifteen to seventeen hundred 
miles the longer of the two. Therefore, accord- 
ing to natural laws, the Missouri is the main 
stream, and the smaller and shorter Mississippi 
is only a branch of it. From the junction of 
the two rivers the current, increased by numer- 
ous tributaries, follows a crooked channel some 
thirteen hundred and fifty-five miles to the Gulf 
of Mexico. The Missouri, therefore, has a total 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 121 

length of four thousand three hundred and sixty- 
three miles, without counting some of its highest 
sources. 

The learned Professor A. Guyot, in a treatise 
on physical geography, written for "A.J.John- 
son's New Illustrated Family Atlas of the World,'' 
informs us that the Amazon River, the great 
drainer of the eastern Andes, is three thousand 
five hundred and fifty miles long, and is the 

LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD. 

According to the figures used by me in ref- 
erence to the Missouri and Mississippi, and 
which are the results of actual observations 
made by competent engineers, the reader will 
find, notwithstanding the statements made by 
our best geographers in regard to the length 
of the Amazon, that there is one river within 
the confines of our country which is eight hun- 
dred and thirteen miles longer than the Amazon, 
and is the longest though not the widest river in 
the world. The rivers of what is now called the 
Mississippi Basin drain one million tAVO hun- 
dred and forty-four thousand square miles of 
territory, while the broader Amazon, with its 
many tributaries, drains the much larger area 
of two million two hundred and seventy-five 
thousand square miles. 

A centmy after the Spaniard, De Soto, had 
discovered the lower Mississippi, and had been 
interred in its bed, a French interpreter, of 



122 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

" Three Rivers," on the northern bank of the St. 
Lawrence River, named Jean Nicollet, explored 
one of the northern tributaries of the Mississippi. 
This was about the year 1639. 

It was reserved for La Salle to make the first 
thorough exploration of the Mississippi. A few 
months after he had returned, alone, from his ex- 
amination of the Ohio as far as the falls at Louis- 
ville, in 1669-70, this undaunted man followed 
the Great Lakes of the north to the western shore 
of Lake Michigan, and making a portage to a 
river, " evidently the Illinois," traversed it to its 
intersection with another river, " flowing from the 
north-west to the south-east," which river must 
have been the Mississippi, and which it is af- 
firmed La Salle descended to the thirty-sixth 
degree of latitude, when he became convinced 
that this unexplored stream discharged itself, not 
into the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of 
Mexico. So La Salle was the discoverer of the 
Illinois as well as of the Ohio; and during his 
subsequent visits to the Mississippi gave that 
river a thorough exploration. 

My entrance to the Mississippi River was 
marked by the advent of severe squalls of wind 
and rain, which drove me about noon to the 
shelter of Island No. 1, where I dined, and 
where in half an hour the sun came out in all 
its glory. Man}^ peculiar features of the Missis- 
sippi attracted my notice. Sand bars appeared 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 23 

above the water, and large flocks of ducks and 
geese rested upon them. Later, the high Chick- 
asaw Bluff, the first and highest of a series which 
rise at intervals, like islands out of the low bot- 
toms as far south as Natchez, came into view on 
the left side of the river. The mound-builders 
of past ages used these natural fortresses to hold 
at bay the fierce tribes of the north, and long 
afterward this Chickasaw Bluff played a conspic- 
uous part in the civil war between the states. 
Columbus, a small village, and the terminus of a 
railroad, is at the foot of the heights. 

A little lower down, and opposite Chalk Bluff, 
was a heavily wooded island, a part of the terri- 
tory of the state of Illinois, and known as Wolf 
Island, or Island No. 5. At five o'clock in the 
afternoon I ran into a little thoroughfare on the 
eastern side of this island, and moored the duck- 
boat under its muddy banks. The wind increased 
to a gale before morning, and kept me through 
the entire day, and until the following morning, 
an unwilling captive. Reading and cooking 
helped to while away the heavy hours, but hav- 
ing burned up all the dry wood I could find, I 
was forced to seek other quarters, which were 
found in a romantic stream that flowed out of a 
swamp and joined the Mississippi just one mile 
above Hickman, on the Kentucky side. Having 
passed a comfortable night, and making an early 
start without breakfast, I rowed rapidly over a 



124 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

smooth current to the stream called Bayou du 
Chi en Creek, in which I made a ver}'^ attractive 
camp among the giant sycamores, sweet-gums, 
and cotton-woods. The warm sunshine pene- 
trated into this sheltered spot, while the wind had 
fallen to a gentle zephyr, and came in refreshing 
puffs through the lofty trees. Here birds wxre 
numerous, and briskly hopped about my fire 
while I made an omelet and boiled some wheaten 
grits. 

In this retired haunt of the birds I remained 
through the whole of that sunny Sunday, cooking 
my three meals, and reading my Bible, as became 
a civilized man. While enjoying this immunity 
from the disturbing elements of the great public 
thoroughfare, the river, curious cries were borne 
upon the wind above the tall tree-tops like the 
chattering calls of parrots, to which my ear had 
become accustomed in the tropical forests of 
Cuba. As the noise grew louder with the ap- 
proach of a feathered flock of visitors, and the 
screams of the birds became more discordant, I 
peered through the branches of the forest to catch 
a glimpse of what I had searched for through 
many hundred miles of wilderness since my boy- 
hood, but what had so far eluded my eager eyes. 
I felt certain these stransre cries must come from 
the Carolina Parrot, or Parakeet {Contcnis Caro- 
llnensis)^ which, though once numerous in all 
the country west of the Alleghanies as far north 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 25 

as the southern shores of 
the Great Lakes, has so 
rapidly diminished in 
k number since 1825, that 
we find it only as an oc- 
casional inhabitant of the 
middle states south of the 
Ohio River. In fact, this 
species is now chiefly 
confined to Florida, west- 
ern Louisiana, Texas, Ar- 
kansas, and the Indian 
^ Territory. That careful 
and reliable ornithologist. 
Dr. Elliot Coues, seems to 
doubt whether it is now 
entitled to a place in the 
avi-fauna of South Caro- 
lina, where it was once 
p found in large flocks. 

The birds soon reached 
the locality of my camp, 





^Meeting with the Parakeets. 



126 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

and circling through the clear, warm atmos- 
phere above the tree-tops, they gradually set- 
tled lower and lower, suspiciously scanning 
my fire, screaming as though their little throats 
would burst, while the sunlight seemed to fill 
the air with the reflections of the green, gold, 
and carmine of their brilliant plumage. They 
dropped into the foliage of the grove^ and for a 
moment were as quiet. as though life had de- 
parted from them, while I kept close to my 
hiding-place behind an immense fallen tree, 
from beneath which I could watch my feathery 
guests. 

The bodies of the adult birds were emerald 
green, with bright blue reflections. The heads 
were yellow, excepting the forehead and cheeks, 
which were scarlet. The large, thick, and hooked 
bill was white, as well as the bare orbital space 
around the eye. The feet were a light flesh- 
color. The length from tip of bill to end of 
tail was about fourteen inches. The young 
birds could be easily distinguished from the 
adults by their short tails and the uniform coat 
of green, while in some cases the frontlet of 
scarlet was just beginning to show itself. The 
adult males were longer than the females. 

The Carolina Parrot does not put on its 
bright-yellow hues until the second season, and 
its most brilliant tints do not come to perfec- 
tion until the bird is fully two years old. They 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 27 

feed upon the seeds of the cockle-burrs, which 
grow in abandoned fields of the planter, as 
well as upon fruits of all kinds, much of which 
they waste in their uneconomical method of 
eating. The low alluvial bottom-lands of the 
river, where pecan and beech nuts abound, are 
their favorite hunting-grounds. 

It is singular that Alexander Wilson, and, in 
fact, all the naturalists, except Audubon, who 
have written about this interesting bird, have 
failed to examine its nest and eggs. By the 
unsatisfactory manner in which Audubon refers 
to the nidification of this parakeet, one is led 
to believe that even he did not become per- 
sonally acquainted with its breeding habits. 

The offer by Mr. Maynard of one dollar for 
every parrot's egg delivered to him, induced a 
Florida cracker to cut a path into a dense cy- 
press swamp at Dunn's Lake, about the middle 
of the month of June. The hunter was occupied 
three days in the enterprise, and returned much 
disgusted with the job. He had found the nests 
of the parakeets in the hollow cypress-trees of 
the swamp, but he was too late to secure the 
eggs, as they were hatched, and the nests filled 
with young birds. The number of young in 
each nest seemed to leave no doubt of the fact 
of several adults nesting in one hole. Probably 
the eggs are laid about the last of May. 

These birds are extremely gregarious, and 



128 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

have been seen at sunset to cluster upon the 
trunk of a gigantic cypress like a swarm of 
bees. One after another slowly crawls through 
a hole into the cavity until it is iilled up, w^hilc 
those who are not so fortunate as to obtain en- 
trance, or reserved seats, cling to the outside 
of the trunk with their claws, and keep their 
position through the night chiefly by hooking 
the tip of the upper mandible of the beak into 
the bark of the tree. The backwoodsmen con- 
fidently assert that they have found as many as 
twenty eggs of a greenish white in a single hol- 
low of a cypress-tree; and as it is generally sup- 
posed, judging from the known habits of other 
species of this genus, that the Carolina Parrot 
lays only two eggs, but few naturalists doubt 
that these birds nest in companies. It is a very 
difficult task to find the nests of parrots in the 
West Indies, some of them building in the hol- 
lowed top of the dead trunk of a royal palm 
which has been denuded of its branches; and 
there, upon the unprotected summit of a single 
column eighty feet in height, without any shel- 
ter from tropical storms, the Cuban Parrot rears 
its young. 

The Carolina Parrot is the only one of this 
species which may truly be said to be a per- 
manent resident of our countr}^ The Mexi- 
can species are sometimes met with along the 
southwestern boundaries of the United States, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 29 

but they emigrate only a few miles north- 
ward of their o^vn regions. The salt-licks in 
the great button-wood bottoms along the Mis- 
sissippi were once the favorite resorts of 
these birds, and they delighted to drink the 
saline water. It is to be regretted that so in- 
teresting a bird should have- been so ruthlessly 
slaughtered where they were once so numer- 
ous. Only the young birds are lit to eat, but 
we read in the accounts of our pioneer natural- 
ists that from eight to twenty birds were often 
killed by the single discharge of a gun, and that 
as the survivors would again and again return 
to the lurking-place of their destroyer, attracted 
by the distressing cries of their wounded com- 
rades, the unfeeling sportsman would continue 
his work of destruction until more than half 
of a large flock would be exterminated. This 
interesting parakeet may, during the next cen- 
tmy, pass out of existence, and be known to our 
descendants as the Great Auk (^Alca inipennis) 
is now known to us, as a very rare specimen in 
the museums of natural history. 

On Monda}^, January 3, I rov^ed out of the 
Bayou du Chien, and soon reached the town 
of Hickman, Kentucky, where I invested in a 
basketful of mince-pies, that deleterious com- 
pound so dear to every American heart. A 
large flatboat, built upon the most primitive 
principles, and without cabin of any kind, was 

9 



130 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-ROX. 

leaving the landing, evidently bound on a fish- 
ing-cruise, for her hold was filled with long 
nets and barrels of provisions. A large roll of 
canvas, to be used as a protection against rain, 
was stowed in one end of the odd craft, while 
at the other end was a large and very rusty 
cooking-stove, with a joint of pipe rising above 
it. The crew of fishermen labored at a pair 
of long sweeps until the flat reached the strong 
current, when they took in their oars, and, clus- 
tering about the stove, filled their pipes, and were 
soon reclining at their ease on the pile of nets, 
apparently as well satisfied with their tub as 
Diogenes was with his. As I rowed past them, 
they roused themselves into some semblance of 
interest, and gazed upon the little white boat, 
so like a pumpkin-seed in shape, which soon 
passed from their ^'iew as it disappeared down 
the wide Mississippi. 

There was something in the appearance of 
that rough flatboat that made me wish I had 
hailed her quiet crew; for, strange to say, they 
did not send after me a shower of slang phrases 
and uncouth criticisms, the usual prelude to 
conversation among flatboat-men when they 
desire to cultivate the acquaintance of a fel- 
low-voyager. In fact, it was rather startling 
not to have the usual greeting, and I won- 
dered wh}^ I heard no friendly expressions, such 
as, " Here, you river thief, haul alongside and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I3I 

report yourself! Whar did you come from? 
Come and take a pull at the bottle! It's prime 
stuff, I tell ye ; will kill a man at forty paces," 
&c. The rusty stove was as strong an attraction 
as the quiet crew, as I thought how convenient 
it would be to run alongside of the old boat 
and utilize it for my culinary purposes. The 
unwonted silence, however, proved conclusively 
that some refined instinct, unknown to the usual 
crews of such boats, governed these voyagers, 
and I feared to intrude upon so dignified a 
party. 

Descending a long straight reach, after mak- 
ing a run of twenty-three miles, I crossed the 
limits of Kentucky, and, entering Tennessee, 
saw on its shore, in a deep bend of the river, 
the site of Fort Donaldson, while opposite to 
it lay the low Island No. 10. Both of these 
places were full of interest, being the scenes 
of conflict in our civil war. The little white 
sneak-box glided down another long bend, over 
the wrecks of seven steamboats, and passed 
New Madrid, on the Missouri shore. The 
mouth of Reelfoot Bayou then opened before 
me, a creek which conducts the waters from 
the weird recesses of one of the most interest- 
ing lakes in America, — a lake which was the 
immediate result of a disastrous series of dis- 
turbances generally referred to as the New 
Madrid earthquakes, and which took place in 



132 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

1811-13. Much of the country In the vicinity 
of New Madrid and Fort Donaldson was in- 
volved in these serious shocks. Swamps were 
upheaved and converted into dr}' uplands, while 
cultivated uplands were depressed below the 
average water level, and became swamps or 
ponds of water. The inhabitants, deprived of 
their little farms, were reduced to such a stage 
of suffering as to call for aid from government, 
and new lands were granted them in place of 
their fields which had sunk out of sight. Hun- 
dreds of square miles of territory were lost dur- 
ing the two years of terrestrial convulsions. 

The most interesting effect of the subsidence 
of the land was the creation of Reelfoot Lake, 
the fluvial entrance to which is from the tort- 
uous Mississippi some forty-five miles belov/ 
Hickman, Kentucky. The northern portion of 
the lake is w^est of and a short distance from 
Fort Donaldson, about twenty miles from Hick- 
man, by the river route. As Reelfoot Lake 
possesses the peculiar flora and characteristics 
of a multitude of other swamp-lakes through- 
out the w^ilderness of the lower Mississippi 
valley, I cannot better describe them all than 
by giving to the reader a description of that 
lake, written by an intelligent observer w^ho vis- 
ited the locality in 1874. 

"Nothing," he says, "could well exceed the 
singularity of the view that meets the eye as one 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 33 

comes out of the shadows of the forest on to the 
border of this sheet of water. From the marshy 
shore spreads out the vast extent of the seeming- 
ly level carpet of vegetation, — • a mat of plants, 
studded over with a host of beautiful flowers; 
through this green prairie runs a maze of water- 
w^ays, some just wide enough for a pirogue, 
some widening into pools of darkened water. 
All over this expanse rise the trunks of gigan- 
tic cypresses, shorn of all their limbs, and left 
like great obelisks, scattered so thickly that the 
distance is lost in the forest of spires. Some 
are whitened and some blackened by decay and 
fire; many rise to a hundred feet or more above 
the lake. The branches are all gone, save in 
a few more gigantic forms, whose fantastic rem- 
nants of the old forest arches add to the illu- 
sion of monumental ruin which forces itsell on 
the mind. The singularity of the general etfect 
is quite matched by the wonder of the detail. 

^^ Taking the solitary dug-out canoe, or pi- 
rogue, as it is called in the vernacular, ^\^e pad- 
dled out into the tangle of water-paths. The 
green carpet, studded w^ith yellow and white, 
that we saw from the shores, resolved itself into 
a marvellously beautiful and varied vegetation. 
From the tangle of curious forms the eye selects 
two noble flowers: our familiar northern water- 
lily, grown to a royal form, its flowers ten inches 
broadj and its floating pads near a foot across; 



134 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

and another grander flower, the Wampapin lily, 
the queen of American flowers. It is worth a 
long journey to see this shy denizen of our 
swamps in its full beauty. From the midst of 
its great floating leaves, which are two feet or 
more in diameter, rise two large leaves borne 
upon stout foot-stalks that bring them a yard 
above the water; from between these elevated 
leaves rises to a still greater height the stem 
of the flower. The corolla itself is a gold- 
colored cup a foot in diameter, lily-like in a 
general way, but with a large pestle-shaped 
ovary rising in the centre of the flower, in which 
are planted a number of large seeds, the '^ pins ' 
of Wampapin. These huge golden cups are 
poised on their stems, and wave in the breeze 
above great wheel-like leaves, while the innu- 
merable white lilies fill in the spaces between, 
and enrich the air with their perfume. 

" Slowly we crept through the tangled paths 
until we were be3^ond the sight of shore, in 
the perfect silence of this vast ruined temple, 
on every side the endless obelisks of the de- 
caying cypress, and as far as the eye could 
see were ranged the numberless nodding bells 
of the yellow lilies, and the still-eyed white 
stars below them. While we waited in the 
coming evening, the silence was so deep, the 
whir of a bald eagle's wings, as he swept 
through the air, w^as audible from afar. The 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 35 

lonely creature sat on the peak of one of the 
wooden towers over our boat, and looked curi- 
ously down upon us. The waters seemed full 
offish, and, indeed, the lake has much celebrity 
as a place for such game. We could see them 
creeping through the mazes of the water-forest, 
in a slow, blind way, not a bit like the dance of 
the northern creatures of the active waters of our 
mountain streams. 

" There is something of forgetfulness in such 
a scene, a sense of a world far away, with no path 
back to it. One might fall to eating our Wam- 
papin lily, as did the Chickasaws of old, and find 
in it the all-lbrgetting lotus, for it is, indeed, the 
brother of the lotus of the Nile. We do not 
know how far these forgotten savages found the 
mystic influence of the Nilotic lotus in these 
queenly flowers of the swamps, but tradition says 
that they ate not only the seeds, but the bulbous 
roots, which the natives aver are quite edible. 
So we, too, can claim a lotus-eating race, and arc 
even able to try the soul-subduing powers of the 
plant at our will. 

" There is something in the weight of life and 
death in these swamps that subdues the mind, 
and makes the steps we take fall as in a dream. 
It was not easy to fix a basis for memory with the 
pencil, and recollection shapes a vast sensation 
of strangeness, a feeling as if one had trod for a 
moment beyond the brink of time, rather than 
any distinct images." 



136 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

At sunset I came upon Joe Eckel's Bar, — not 
the fluvial establishment so much resorted to by 
people ashore, — but a genuine Mississippi sand- 
bar, or shoal, which was covered with two feet 
of water, and affbi'ded lodgment for a heavy raft 
of trees that had floated upon it. The island was 
also partly submerged, but I found a cove with a 
sandy beach on its lower end; and running into 
the little bay, I staked the boat in one foot of 
water, much to the annoyance of flocks of wild- 
fowl w^hich circled about me at intervals all ni^ht. 
The current had been turbid during the day, and 
to supply myself with drinking-water it was ne- 
cessary to fill a can from the river and wait for 
the sediment to precipitate itself before it was fit 
for use. Fifty-six miles were logged for the day's 
row. 

In the morning Joe Eckel's Bar was alive w^ith 
geese and ducks, cackling a lusty farewell as 
I pushed through the drift stuff' and resumed my 
voyage down the swelling river. 

The reaches were usually five miles in length, 
though some of them were very much longer. 
Sometimes deposits of sand and vegetable matter 
will build up a small island adjacent to a large 
one, and then a dense thicket of cotton-wood 
brush takes possession of it, and assists materi- 
ally in resisting the encroachments of the cur- 
rent. These little, low islands, covered with 
thickets, are called tow-heads, and the maps of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I37 

the Engineer Corps of the United States distin- 
guish them from the originally numbered is- 
lands in the following manner: "Island No. 18," 
and "Tow Head of Island No. 18." 

In addition to the numbered islands, which 
commence with Island No. 1, below the mouth 
of the Ohio, and end with Island No. 125, above 
the inlet to Bayou La Fourche, in Louisiana, there 
are many which have been named after their 
owners. During one generation a planter may 
live upon a peninsula comprising many thousand 
acres, with his cotton-fields and houses fronting 
on the Mississippi. The treacherous current 
of this river may suddenly cut a new way across 
his estate inland at a distance of two miles from 
his home. As the gradual change goes on, he 
looks from the windows of his house upon a new 
scene. He no longer has the rapid flowing river, 
enlivened by the passage of steamboats and other 
craft; but before him is a sombre bayou, or cres- 
cent-shaped lake, whose muddy waters are al- 
most motionless. He was the proprietor of 
Needham's Point, he is now the owner of 
Needham's Island^ and lives in the quiet atmos- 
phere of the backwoods of Tennessee. 

This day's row carried me past heavily-wooded 
shores, cotton-fields with some of the cotton still 
unpicked; past the limits of Missouri on the left 
side, and into the wild state of Arkansas at 
Island No. 21. I finally camped on Island 



138 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

No. 26, in a half submerged thicket, after a row 
of fifty-eight miles. 

As there were many flat and shanty boats 
floating southward, I adopted a plan by means 
of which my dinners were frequently cooked 
with little trouble to myself or others. About 
an hour before noon I gazed about within the 
narrow horizon for one of those floating: habita- 
tions, and rowing alongside, engaged in conver- 
sation with its occupants. The men would tell 
what success they had had in collecting the skins 
of wild animals (though silent upon the subject 
of pig-stealing), while the women would talk 
of the homes they had left, and sigh for the re- 
finements and comforts of ^^ city life," by which 
they meant their former existence in some small 
town on the upper river. While we were ex- 
changing our budgets of information I would 
obtain the consent of the presiding goddess of 
the boat to stew my ambrosia upon her stove, 
the sneak-box floating the while alongside its 
tub-like companion. Many a half hour was spent 
in this way; and, besides the comfort of a hot 
dinner, there were advantages aflbrded for the 
study of characters not to be found elsewhere. 

These peculiar boats, so often encountered, 
found refuge in the frequent cut-offs behind the 
many islands of the river; for besides those 
islands which have been numbered, new ones 
are forming every year. At times, when the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 39 

water is very high, the current will cut a new 
route across the low isthmus, or neck, of a penin- 
sula, around which sweeps a long reach of the 
main channel, leaving the tortuous bend which 
it has deserted to be gradually tilled up with 
snags, deposits of alluvium, and finally to be car- 
peted with a vegetable growth. In some cases, as 
the stream works away to the eastward or west- 
ward, it remains an inland crescent-shaped lake, 
numbers of which are to be found in the wilder- 
ness many miles from the parent stream. I have 
known the channel of the Mississippi to be short- 
ened twenty miles during a freshet, and a steam- 
boat which had followed the great ox-bow bend 
in ascending the river, on its return trip shot 
throuo:h the new cut-off of a few hundred feet in 
length, upon fifteen feet of water where a fort- 
night before a forest had been growing. 

The area of land on both sides of the Mis- 
sissippi subjected to annual overflow, like the 
country surrounding the Nile, in Egypt, is very 
large. There are localities thirty or forty miles 
away from the river where the height of the over- 
flow of the previous year is plainly registered 
upon the trunks of the trees by a coating of yel- 
low mud, which sometimes reaches as high as a 
man's head. This great region possesses vast 
tracts of rich land, as well as millions of acres of 
low swamps and bayou bottoms. 

The traveller, the hunter, the zoologist, and 



140 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

the botanist can all find here in these rich river 
bottoms a ready reward for an}' inconveniences 
experienced on the route. Strange t3'pes of half- 
civilized w^hites, game enough to satisfy the most 
rapacious, beast and bird of peculiar species, and 
over all the immense forests of cypress, sw^eet- 
gums, Spanish-oaks, tulip-trees, sycamores, cot- 
ton-w^oods, w4iite-oaks, &c., w^hile the most deli- 
cate wn Id-flowers " waste their sweetness on the 
desert air." Across all this natural beauty the 
whisper of desolation casts a cloud, for here dur- 
ing most of the year arises the health-destroying 
malaria. 

Upon the high lands the squatter builds his 
log cabin, and makes his clearing where the rich 
soil and warm sun assist his rude agricultural 
labors, and he is rewarded with a large crop of 
maize and sweet potatoes. These, with bacon 
from his herd of wandering pigs, give sustenance 
to his family of children, who, hatless and bon- 
netless, roam through the woods until the sun 
bleaches their hair to the color of flax. With 
tobacco, whiskey, and ammunition for himself, 
and an ample supply of snufl' for his wife, he 
drags out an indolent existence; but he is the 
pioneer of American civilization, and as he mi- 
grates every few years to a more western wilder- 
ness, his lands are frequently occupied by a more 
intelligent and industrious class, and his improve- 
ments are improved upon. The new-comer. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I4I 

with greater ambition and more ample means, 
raises cotton instead of corn, and depends upon 
the Ohio valley for a supply of that cereal. 

Wednesday, January 5th, was a sunny and 
windy day. The Arkansas shores afforded me 
a protection from the w^nd as I rowed dow^n 
towards Fort Pillow, which, according to the 
map of the United States Engineer Corps, is 
situated upon Chickasaw Bluff No. 1, though 
some writers and map-makers designate the Co- 
lumbus Bluff, below the mouth of the Ohio, 
as the first Chickasaw Bluff. The site of Fort 
Pillow is about thirty feet above the water. It 
commands the low country opposite, and two 
reaches of the river for a long distance. A little 
below the fort, on the right bank of the river, 
was an extensive cotton-field, still Vhite with 
the flossy cellulose. Here I landed under the 
shady trees, and gathered cotton, the result of 
peaceful labor. Truly had the sword been beaten 
into the ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning- 
hook, for above me frowned down Fort Pillow, 
the scene of the terrible negro massacre in our 
late war. Now the same sun shone so brightly 
upon the graves scattered here and there, and 
w^armed into life the harvest sown in peace. 

At intervals I caught glimpses of negro cabins, 
with their clearings, and their little crops of cot- 
ton glistening in the sun. The island tow-heads 
and sand-bars were numerous, and in places the 



142 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Mississippi broadened into lake-like areas, while 
the yellow current, now heavily charged with 
mud, arose in height every hour. The climate 
was growing delightful. It was like a June day 
in the northern states. Each soft breeze of the 
balmy atmosphere seemed to say, as I felt its 
strange, fascinating influence, " You are nearing 
the goal ! " The shadows of the twilight found 
me safel}^ ensconced behind the lower end of 
Island No. 33, where in the bayou between it 
and the Tennessee shore I lazily watched fair 
Luna softly emerging from the clouds, and lend- 
ing to the grand old w^oods her tender light. 

I proceeded southward the next day, rowing 
comfortably after having divested myself of all 
superfluous apparel. The negroes, on their one- 
horse plantations, gave a hearty hail as I passed, 
but I noted here a feature I had remarked when 
upon my " Voyage of the Paper Canoe," on the 
eastern coast. It was the silence in which these 
people worked. The merry song of the darky 
was no longer heard as in the " auld lang syne." 
Then he was the slave of a white master. Now 
he is the slave of responsibilities and cares which 
press heavily upon his heretofore unthinking 
nature. To-day he has a future if he can 
make it. 

During the day, a lone woman on a shanty- 
boat, which was securely fastened to an old 
stump, volunteered much information in regard 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 43 

to "her man,'' and the money he expected to 
receive for the skins he had been collecting dur- 
ing the winter. She said he would get in New 
Orleans thirty-five cents apiece for his coon- 
skins, one dollar for minks, and one dollar and a 
half each for beaver and otter skins. She in- 
formed me that the sunken country below Mem- 
phis, on the Arkansas side, was full of deer and 

bears. 

By rowing briskly I was able to pass Memphis, 
the principal river port of Tennessee, at five 
o'clock in the afternoon. This flourishing city 
is situated upon one of the Chickasaw bluffs, 
thirty feet above the river. At the base of the 
bluft' a bed of sandstone projects into the water, 
it being the only known stratum of rock along 
the river between Cairo and the Gulf From the 
Ohio River to Vicksburg, a distance of six hun- 
dred miles, it is asserted that there is no other 
site for a commercial city: so Memphis, though 
isolated, enjoys this advantage, which has, in fact, 
made her the busy cotton-shipping port she is 
to-day. Her population is about forty thousand. 
As Memphis is connected by railroads with the 
towns and villages of all the back country, in 
addition to her water advantages, she may be 
called the business centre of an immense area 
of cultivated land. The view of the city from 
the river is striking. Her esplanade, several 
hundred feet in width, sweeps along the bluff, 
and is covered with large warehouses. 



144 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Pushing steadily southward, I looked out anx- 
iously for a good camping-ground for the night, 
feeling that a rest had been Avell earned, for I 
had rowed sixty-one miles that day. Soon after 
passing Horn Lake Bend, the thickets of Crow 
Island attracted my attention, for along the muddy, 
crumbling bank the mast of a little sloop arose 
from the water, and a few feet inland the bright 
blaze of a camp-fire shone through the mists of 
evening. A cheery hail of, ^' I say, stranger, pull 
in, and tie up here," came from a group of three 
roughly-clad men, who were bending over the 
coals, busily engaged in frying salt pork and pota- 
toes. The swift current forced me into an edd}^ 
close to the camp. One of the men caught my 
painter, and drew me close under the lee of 
their roughly constructed sloop of about two 
tons' burden. When seated by the bright fire, 
" the boys " told me their history. They were 
out of ^vork; so, investing sixty dollars in an old 
sloop, putting on board a barrel of pork, a barrel 
of flour, some potatoes, coffee, salt, and molasses, 
(which cargo was to last three months,) they 
started to cut canes in the canebrakes of White 
River, Arkansas. These canes were to be util- 
ized as fishing-poles, and being carefully assorted 
and fastened into bundles, were to be shipped to 
Cincinnati by steamer, and from there by rail to 
Cleveland, Ohio, where Mr. Farrar, their con- 
signee, would dispose of them for the party. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 45 

They had come down the Mississippi from Keo- 
kuk, Iowa, having left that place December 13th, 
and had experienced various delays, having sev- 
eral times been frozen up in creeks. They would 
be able to cut, during the winter, twenty-five 
thousand fishing-rods, enough, one would think, 
to clear the streams of all the finny tribe. Mr. 
E. C. Stirling, of Painesville, Ohio, was the prin- 
cipal of the party, and I found him an unusually 
intelligent 3^oung man. He had passed the pre- 
vious winter alone upon White River in an ex- 
perimental sort of way, and had succeeded in 
obtaining the finest lot of fishing-rods that had 
ever been sent north. 

There was so much to be talked about, and 
so many experiences in voyaging to be ex- 
changed, that we decided to remain that night 
on Crow Island, as there w^as not much risk of 
my being deluged by the passing steamers, for 
it was evident that the steamboat channel huofofcd 
the bank of the opposite side of the river. I 
took ashore chocolate, canned milk, white sugar, 
and some of the Hickman mince-pies, while the 
boys rolled logs of wood on to the fire, and buried 
potatoes in the hot ashes. Stirling went to work 
at bread-making, and putting his dough in one of 
those flat-bottomed, three-legged, iron-covered 
vessels, which my reader will now recognize as 
the bake-pan, or Dutch oven, placed it on the 
coals, and loaded its cover with hot embers. The 
10 



146 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

potatoes were soon baked, and possessed a meal- 
iness not usually found in those served up by the 
family cook. Stirling's bread was a success, 
and my chocolate disappeared down the throats 
of the hearty western boys as fast as its scalding 
temperature would admit. 

Stirling told me of his life during the previous 
winter in the swamps of White River. On one 
occasion, a steamer having lost her anchor near 
his locality, the captain of the boat offered to re- 
ward Stirling liberally if he would recover the 
lost property; so, while the captain was making 
his up-river trip, the Ohio boy worked industri- 
ously dredging for the cable. He found it; and 
under-running the heavy rope, raised it and the 
anchor. When the steamer returned to Bete- 
ley's Landing, Stirling delivered the anchor and 
coil of rope to the captain, who, intending to 
defraud the young man of the promised reward, 
ordered the mate to " cast off the lines." The 
gong had signalled the engineer to get un- 
der way, but not quick enough to escape the 
young salvage-owner, who grasped the coil of 
rope and dragged it ashore, shouting to the 
captain, " You may keep your anchor, but I 
will keep your cable as salvage, to which I am 
entitled for my trouble in saving your property." 

A few days later, Stirling, wishing to know 
whether he could legally hold his salvage fees, 
paddled down to Bolivia, a small town in the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 47 

State of Mississippi, to obtain legal advice in re- 
gard to the matter. The white people referred 
him to a negro justice of the peace, whom they 
assured him " had more law-larnin' than any 
white man in the diggings, and is the honestest 
nigger in these parts." Being ushered into the 
presence of a dignified negro, the cutter of- fish- 
ing-poles informed the "justice" that he desired^ 
legal advice in a case of salvage. 

'^'Dat's rite, dat's berry good, sah," said the 
negro; "now you jes' set rite down he'ar, and 
macadimize de case to me. I gibs ebery man 
justice — no turnin' to de rite or de leff hand." 

Stirling stated the facts, the colored justice 
puckering up his shiny brow, and his whole 
countenance expressing perplexity. " I want to 
know," said the possessor of the cable, "whether 
I can legally hold on to the coil of rope; use 
it or sell it for my own benefit, without being 
sued by the captain, who broke his agreement 
with me." 

The colored man attempted to consult a vol- 
ume containing a digest of laws; but being an 
inditferent reader, he handed it to Stirling, say- 
ing, "Now you, sah, jes look froo de book and 
find de larnin' on de case." Having carefully 
consulted the book, Stirling declared he found 
nothing that covered the salvage question in 
reo^ard to cables and anchors. " Nufiin at all.^^ 
nuffin at all?" asked the justice, seriously. 



148 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

^^ Now let me rest cle case a moment fur per- 
spection." As he pondered on a case which 
could not be decided by precedent, an idea 
seemed to lighten his sable features, for he 
straightened himself up and exclaimed, " Den I 
wnll gib you an opinion. Dis court will apply 
de common law ob de state ob Mississippi; and 
dis is it: ^ What you habj dat yoti keepP Dis 
is de teachings ob de bar, de bench, and de 
code." 

Having received this august opinion, Stirling 
paddled back in his dug-out canoe to the 
swamps of Arkansas, much amused, if not im- 
pressed, with the negro's simple method of suc- 
cessfully disposing of a case, so unlike the usual 
procrastinating customs which fetter the courts 
presided over by learned white men. 

Early on the following day I left the camp 
of the Ohio boys, for their progress was assisted 
by a large sail, and it would have been impos- 
sible for me to have kept up with them. They 
also travelled by night as well as by day, keep- 
ing one man at the helm while the others slept. 
At the lower end of Crow Island I left the 
state of Tennessee and entered the confines of 
Mississippi, having Arkansas still on my right 
hand. 

During part of the afternoon I accompanied 
a flatboat-man and his family as far as Island 
No. 60, where we ran into a little bayou for 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 49 

the night. There was a rowdy settlement here^ 
and many rough fellows were in the streets, 
shouting and lighting; but as I entered the 
bayou after dark, and secreted myself in the 
half submerged swamp, no one knew of my 
being there: so I felt safe from insult. The 
owner of the flatboat with whom I had entered 
the bayou intended to fish for the settlement. 
He was an old trapper, and informed me that 
bears were still abundant in parts of Alabama. 
He said the Canada Goose bred in small num- 
bers in the lakes of the back country. His 
experiences with human nature found expres- 
sion in his advice to me when I parted from 
him the next morning. " Don't leave your boat 
alone for half an hour in these parts, stranger. 
Niggers is bad, and some white folks too." 
Promising my new friend to look out for number 
one, I waved an adieu to him and his, and went 
on my solitary way. 



150 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



CHAPTER VII. 

•DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS. 

A FLATBOAT BOUND FOR TEXAS. — A FLAT-MAN ON RIVER PHYS- 
ICS. — ADRIFT AND ASLEEP. — SEEING THE EARTH'S LITTLE 
MOON. — VICKSBURGH. — JEFFERSON DAVIS'S COTTON PLANTA- 
TION, AND ITS NEGRO OWNER. — DYING IN HIS BOAT. — HOW 
TO CIVILIZE CHINESE. — A SWIM OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWEN- 
TY MILES ON THE MISSISSIPPI. — TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN THE 
WATER. — ARRIVAL IN THE CRESCENT CITY. 



D 



URING the afternoon, while rowing out 
of the cut-off behind an island, I caught 
sight of a flatboat floating in the contour of a 
distant bend. . There was something familiar in 
her appearance, and, as I drew nearer, I recog- 
nized the pile of nets, the rusty stove, and the 
civil but silent crew. She was the same flat 
which had left Hickman, Kentucky, the morn- 
ing I had departed from that town with my 
basket of pies. This time the crew seemed 
like old friends. River life makes all men 
equal. A pleasant hail now greeted me, and 
the duck-boat was soon moored to the side of 
the flat. As we floated along with the current, 
sipping our coffee, the captain told me his his- 
tory. The war had reduced him from affluence 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 151 

to poverty, and in order to support his family, 
he had built a scow and penetrated the weird 
waters of Reelfoot Lake, from which he was 
able, for several years, to supply the citizens of 
Hickman with excellent fish. The enterprise 
was a novelty at that time, and there being no 
competition, he made four thousand dollars the 
first year. After that others went into the busi- 
ness, and it became profitless. His mind was 
now bent upon a new field. Hearing that the 
people of northern Texas were destitute of a 
regular fish-market, he had provisioned his flat 
for a winter's campaign, and intended floating 
with his men down to the mouth of Red River, 
where he would be towed by a steamer through 
the state of Louisiana to the northeastern end 
of Texas. There entering Caddo Lake, which 
is from fifty to sixty miles long, and where 
game, ducks, and fish abound, he would camp 
upon the shores and set his nets. The rail- 
roads which penetrated that section would af- 
ford means for the rapid distribution of his fish. 

The party, anxious to arrive at their scene of 
action, floated night and day. The society of an 
educated man was so delightful at the time that 
I remained beside the flat all night. A lantern 
was hung above the bow of the boat to show 
the pilots of steamers our position. Whenever 
one of these disturbers of our peace passed the 
flat, I was obliged to cast ofl* and pull into the 



152 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

stream, as the swash would ahnost ingulf me 
if I remained tied to the side of the large boat. 
I could only sleep by snatches, for just as I 
would be dropping off into the land of Nod, 
the watch upon the flat would call out, " Here 
comes another steamer," w^hich was the signal 
for me to take to my oars. 

The next day was Sunday, but the flat kept 
on her way. I cooked my meals upon the 
rusty stove, and we floated side by side, con- 
versing hour after hour. The low banks of the 
river showed the presence of levees, or artificial 
dikes, built to keep out the freshets. Upon 
these dikes the grass was putting forth its 
tender blades, and the willows were bursting 
into leaf. We passed White River and the 
Arkansas, both of which pour their waters out 
of the great wilderness of the state of Arkansas. 
Below the mouth of the last-named river was 
the town of Napoleon, with its deserted houses, 
the most forlorn aspect that had yet met 
my eye. The banks were caving into the river 
day by day. Houses had fallen into the cur- 
rent, w^hich was undermining the town. Here 
and there chimneys w^ere standing in solitude, the 
buildings having been torn down and removed 
to other localities to save them from the insa- 
tiable maw of the river. These pointed upward 
like so many warning cenotaphs of the river's 
treachery, and contrasted strongly in the mind's 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 53 

eye with the many happy family circles which 
had once gathered at their bases around the 
cheerful hearths. 

About ten o'clock in the forenoon the pro- 
prietor of the flatboat decided, as it was Sun- 
da3% to run into a bend of the river and tie 
up for the day. That night the banks caved 
in so frequently that I was in danger of being 
entombed in my sneak-box; and I rejoiced when 
morning came and the dangerous quarters were 
left behind. My flatboat companions made 
known to me a curious feature of river physics 
well known to the great floating population of 
the western streams. If you start with a flat- 
boat or raft of timber from any point on the 
Ohio or Mississippi rivers at the moment a rise 
in the water takes place, and continue floating 
night and day without interruption, you will in 
a few days ovemLii the effects of the rise, or 
freshet, and get below it. A little later you will 
discover, at some point a few hundred miles 
down-stream, that the river is just commencing 
to swell, as the result of the freshet upon which 
you originally started. 

During Tuesday and Wednesday of January 
II and 12, I was at times with the flat, and at 
times miles away from it. Near Skipwith Land- 
ing, Mississippi, we passed large and well-cul- 
tivated cotton-plantations, but the river country 
in its vicinity w^as almost a wilderness. 



154 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

My sleep had been much broken by night- 
travelling, and about nine o'clock on Wednes- 
day evening I fastened my boat to the flat, and 
determined to have two or three hours of re • 
freshing slumber. An hour's peaceful rest fol- 
lowed, and then a snorting, screeching stern- 
wheel steamer crossed the river with its tow 
of barges, and demoralized all my surroundings, 
driving me against the flat, and shooting water 
over the deck of my craft. Only half awake, I 
cast oflf from the flat, and thought that I was 
rowing down-river as usual; but I had dropped 
back into my nest just for one moment, and was 
in the land of Nod. I felt in my sleep that I 
was floating down the Mississippi. I was con- 
scious that I had left the flatboat, and that 
steamers, snags, and eddies must be looked out 
for, or disaster w^ould come quickly upon me. 

I knew I nvas asleep, and tried to rouse my- 
self. I seemed to be watching the moon, which 
shone with silver glory upon the glistening 
v^aters, and made the dark forests, rising wall- 
like on the banks, even darker by comparison. 
Then I seemed to enter the fields of astronomy, 
moving through the atmosphere still pulling at 
my oars. My mental vision stretched across the 
Atlantic, and enveloped the old astronomical 
observator}^ of the French city of Toulouse. 
It was the hour of sunset, and the learned Di- 
rector Petit was at his post carefully adjusting 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 55 

his telescope, eager with the hope of identify- 
ing an undiscovered meteorite, the presence of 
which had been suggested by certain disturb- 
ances amonof the celestial bodies. The savant 
carefully pointed his instrument to the neigh- 
boring regions of the setting sun, when sud- 
denly T saw him start, and heard him mutter, 
like a philosopher of old, ^^ Eureka, I have found 
it! " Only a ray of light had flashed across the 
field of his telescope as an asteroid shot into 
the o^loam of the sun. Its movements were so 
rapid, its disappearance so sudden, that it was 
impossible to obtain another glimpse of the un- 
known body. The god of day had enveloped 
the satellite in curtains of powerful light, so that 
no eye but that of its Creator could gaze again 
that night upon the little stranger which had 
been seen for the first tiine by man. 

The astronomer moved away from his instru- 
ment and the wonderful machinery that had 
guided it in its search for the asteroid, slowly 
inuttering: "The sun robbed me of a second 
sight of iTi}^ discovery, yet only at this hour can 
I hope to get a glimpse of it. The difficulties 
attending this observation are the tremendous 
velocity with which it travels, its ver}^ small 
mass, and the rapidity with which, at the hour 
of sunset, it passes into the shadow of the earth. 
I will, however, calculate its orbit, and search 
for it again; for I have this evening seen what 



156 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

no human e3^e has ever beheld, I have seen the 
Earth's Little Moon." While I watched, 
entranced, the astronomer, aided by his assist- 
ants, labored over multitudes of figures hour 
after hour, day after day; and from these com- 
putations an orbit was constructed for the Little 
Moon. 

Their work was finished; and as they left the 
observatory, a shadow, which had thrown its 
dark outlines here and there about the pro- 
fessor during his investigations, assumed the 
proportions of a man; and I saw for an instant 
the brilliant French writer, Jules Verne, while 
a voice in the musical lano^uaofe of France fell 
upon my ear: "Ah, Monsieur, it is true, then, 
and we have a second moon, which must revolve 
round our planet once in three hours and twenty 
minutes, at a distance of only four thousand six 
hundred and fifty miles from our terrestrial 
abiding-place! " 

Then the professor and his figures faded out 
of m}' vision; and I seemed to be observing a 
little moon revolving with lightning rapidity 
round the earth, while I felt that I had, in some 
way, been sucked into its orbit, and was whirl- 
ing around with it. Suddenly, with a keen sense 
of danger pervading my whole nervous system., 
I awoke. Yes, it was a dream! I was in my 
boat, gazing up into the serene heavens, where 
the larger moon was tranquilly following her 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 57 

orbit, while I was being whirled round in a 
strong eddy under a high bank of the river, 
with the giant trees frowning down upon me 
as though rebuking a careless boatman for being 
caught napping. And where was the flat? I 
gazed across the wide river into the quiet at- 
mosphere now full of the bright light of the 
moon, — but no boat could be seen; and from 
the wild forest alone came back an echo to 
my shouts of " Flatboat, ahoy!" For hours I 
rowed in search of my cornpagnoji de voyage. 

As I hurried along the reaches of the river, 
every island cut-ofl:^, every tow-head, and every 
nigger-head, was inspected. I even peered into 
the mouths of dark bayous, thinking the party 
•might have tied up to await my arrival, as the 
larger and deeper craft floated faster than my 
little boat. All search, however, proved fruit- 
less. No flat could be seen. M}'' endeavors to 
lind my quondam friends had been so absorb- 
ing that things above my line of vision were 
not observed, when suddenly the bright moon- 
light revealed to my astonished eyes a lofty city 
apparently suspended in the heavens. By the 
aid of a candle and my map I discovered that 
the city and fortifications of Vicksburgh were 
close at hand, and that it was four o'clock in 
the morning. 

My first view of Vicksburgh was over a long, 
low point of land, across the base of which was 



158 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

excavated, during the investment of the city by 
United States troops in the late war, "General 
Grant^s Cut-off." By using this cut-off, light- 
drauo-ht o-unboats could ascend or descend the 
river without passing near the batteries of the 
fortified city. This point, or peninsula, which 
the Union forces held, is on the Louisiana shore, 
opposite Vicksburgh. A year or two after I 
passed that interesting locality, a Natchez news- 
paper, in describing the change made in the 
channel of the Mississippi River, said that " St. 
Joseph and Rodney have been left inland; 
Vicksburgh is left on a lake; Delta will soon 
be washed away; a cut-off has been made at 
Grand Gulf, and by another season Port Gibson 
and Claiborne County will have no landing." 

Floating quietly in my little boat, and gazing 
at the city upon the heights, I thought of the 
bloody scenes there enacted, and of the state- 
ment made that "three hundred tons of lead, 
mostly bullets, had been collected in and around 
the town since the close of the war." This 
lead, it has been asserted, would make nine 
million six hundred thousand ounce-balls. Of 
course, in this statement there is no mention of 
the lead buried deep in the earth, and that lost 
in the river. 

Entering a great bend, the swift current swept 
me so rapidly past Vicksburgh that a few mo- 
ments later I was among the islands and tow- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 159 

heads of the river. At noon the plantation of 
Mr. Jefferson Davis v^as passed. It v^as situ- 
ated twenty-five miles belov^r Vicksburgh, and 
prior to February, 1867, was on a long penin- 
sula with the estate of Colonel Joseph E. Davis 
and one belonging to Messrs. Quitman and 
Farrar. Then came the overwhelming river, 
sweeping across a narrow neck of land, and 
transforming the cotton-plantations into an island 
territory. In the old days of slavery, Colonel 
Joseph E. Davis, brother of the ex-president of 
the late Confederate States, had a body-servant 
named Ben Montgomery. He was the manager 
of his master's estates while a slave, and was 
so industrious and honest in all his dealings, 
and so successful in business, that after the war 
he was able to purchase his masters plantation 
for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 

gold. 

While I lingered in the Davis cut-off to lunch, 
a boat-load of white men passed me on their way 
to the plantation of Jefferson Davis, which they 
said had also been purchased by Ben Montgom- 
ery of its former owner, who then resided in 
Memphis. One of the men said: "Mr. Davis 
will convey the property to Ben Montgomery as 
soon as he makes one more payment, and Ben 
told me he was abt)ut ready to close the trans- 
action." 

Montgomery was described as being fairly ed- 



l6o FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ucated, and possessing the presence and address 
of a gentleman. His neighbors credited him 
with being "a right smart good nigger." It is a 
singular fact that these large landed estates 
should have become the property of the former 
slave so soon after the w^ar. Ben Montgomery 
died recently, leaving an example to his col- 
ored brethren worthy of their imitation. 

From Davis's Cut-off I followed Bicf Blacl: 
Island Bend and Hard Times Bend, past the now 
silent batteries of Grand Gulf, down to the town 
of Rodney. I went ashore near the old planta- 
tion of an ex-president (General Taylor) of the 
United States, being attracted by a lot of dr}- 
drift-v/ood which promised a blazing fire. While 
cooking my rice and slow^ly developing an om- 
elet, I calculated upon the chances of finding the 
lost llatboat. It was now evident that she was 
behind, not in advance of me. It was about four 
o'clock, and I determined to await her arrival. 
At half-past six o'clock clouds had obscured the 
sky, and it was impossible to see across the wa- 
ter, but I continued to watch and listen for the 
llat. The current was strongest on my side of 
the river, and I felt certain the boat would follow 
it and pass close to my camp. Her lantern and 
blazing stove-pipe would reveal her presence. 
Suddenly a man coughed within a few rods of 
the shore, and out of the gloom appeared the 
dark outlines of the fisherman's craft, but like a 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. l6l 

phantom ship, it instantly disappeared. It was 
but the work of a moment to embark and follow 
the vanishing flat. I soon overhauled it, and 
received a warm welcome from its occupants, 
who had supposed that after the steamer had 
driven me from them I had sought refuge in a 
creek to make up my lost hours of sleep. We 
floated side by side all night, disturbed but once, 
and then by the powerful steamer Robert Lee, 
which unceremoniously threw about a pail of 
water over me, gratuitously washing my blan- 
kets. 

The next day, January 13, we passed Nat- 
chez, Mississippi, about four o'clock A. M. This 
city, founded by D'Iberville in 1700, is geo- 
graphically divided into two parts. " Natchez 
on the Hill" is situated on a blufl'two hundred 
feet above the river, while "Natchez under the 
Hill " is at the base of the clifl', and from its 
levee vessels sail for foreign as well as for Amer- 
ican ports. Its inland and foreign trade is exten- 
sive, though it has a population of only ten or 
twelve thousand. The aspect of the country 
was changing as we approached New Orleans. 
Fine plantations, protected by levees, now lined 
the river-banks, while the forests of dense green, 
heavily draped with Spanish moss, threw dark 
shadows on the watery path. 

We arrived at the mouth of the Red River 
about dark, and my companions were fortunate 
II 



1 62 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

enough to find a steamer at the landing, the cap- 
tain of which promised to take them in tow to 
their distant goal. We parted like old friends; 
and as I rowed in darkness down the Mississippi 
I heard the shrill whistle of the steamer which 
was dragging my companions up the current of 
Red River into the high lands of Louisiana. 

Up Red River, three miles from its mouth, a 
stream branches off to the south, and empties into 
the Gulf of Mexico. This is the Atchafalaya 
Bayou. At Plaquemine, about one hundred and 
thirty miles below Red River, and on the west 
bank of the Mississippi, another bayou conducts 
a portion of the water from the main stream into 
Grand River, which, with other western Louis- 
iana watercourses, empties into the Gulf of 
Mexico. There is a third western outlet from 
the parent stream at Donaldsonville, eighty-one 
miles above New Orleans, known as the Bayou 
La Fourche, which flows through one of the 
richest sugar-producing sections of the state. 
Dotted here and there along the shores of this 
bayou are the picturesque homes of the planters, 
made more attractive by the semi-tropical vege- 
tation, the clustering vines, blooming roses, and 
bright green turf, than they could ever be from 
mere architectural beauty, while their continu- 
ous course along the shore gives the idea of a 
long and prosperous village. 

The guide-books of the Mississippi describe 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 63 

the Bayou Manchac as an outlet to the Missis- 
sippi on the left, or east bank, below Baton 
Rouge, and the statement is repeatedly made 
that steamboats can go through this bayou into the 
Amite River, and down that river to Lake Pont- 
chartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, leaving, by this 
route, the city of New Orleans to the west. This 
is, however, far from the truth, as I shall pres- 
ently show, for it had been my intention to de- 
scend the Bayou Manchac, and follow D'lber- 
ville's ancient route to the sea. I soon found 
that the accomplishment of my plan was impos- 
sible, as the dry bottom of the bayou was fifteen 
FEET ABOVE the Water of the Mississippi. 

Pursuing my solitary way, I rowed across the 
Mississippi, and skirted the shore in search of a 
camp where I could sleep until the moon arose, 
which would be soon after midnight. During 
the afternoon I had crossed the southern boun- 
dary of the state of Mississippi, and now the river 
ran through the state of Louisiana all the way to 
the sea. 

About nine o'clock I found a little bayou in the 
dark woods, and moored my boat to a snag 
which protruded its head above the still waters 
of the tarn. The old trees that closely encircled 
my nocturnal quarters were fringed with the 
inevitable Spanish moss, and gave a most fune- 
real aspect to the surroundings. The mournful 
hootings of the owls added to the doleful and 



164 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

weird character of the place. 1 was, however, 
too sleepy to waste much sentiment upon the 
gloomy walls of my apartment, and was soon 
lost to all sublunary things. These dark pockets 
of the swamps, these earthly Hades, are famous 
resting-places for those who know the untenable 
nature of ghosts, and who have become the pos- 
sessors of healthy nerves by avoiding the poison- 
ous influences of coal-gas in furnace -heated 
houses, the vitiated air of crowded rooms, and 
other detrimental effects of a city life. In such 
a camp the voyager need fear no intrusion upon 
his privacy, for the superstitions rife among men 
will prevent even Paul Pry from penetrating 
such recesses during the wee sina' hours. Of 
course such a camp would be safe only during 
the winter months, as at other seasons the invidi- 
ous foe, inalaiHa^ would inevitably mark for its 
victim the man who slept beneath such deadly 
shades. 

At midniofht the lio^ht of the moon illuminated 
my dark quarters, and I stole noiselessly out of 
the bayou into the river, rowing until sunrise, 
when the small port of Bayou Sara was passed. 
It was soon left in the dim distance, and the little 
white boat floated ten miles down a nearly straight 
reach in the river to the frowning heights of Port 
Hudson, a place that figured prominently during 
the late war. 

The country round Port Hudson is thickly 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 65 

settled by descendants of the old Acadians, who 
came down the great rivers from Canada in the 
early days of Louisiana's history. Entering the 
mouth of the False River, on the west bank of 
the Mississippi, the traveller will penetrate the 
heart of an old and interesting Acadian settle- 
ment. If his mind be full of poetic fancies, and 
his eyes in search of Gabriels and Evangelines 
as he travels along this part of the Mississippi, 
his ears will be startled by the unmistakable 
Yankee names that are given him as represent- 
ing the proprietors of the various estates he 
passes. Here and there the old French names 
appear; but in almost every such instance its 
possessor is a bachelor, and with him its musical 
accents will die away. Searching into the cause 
of this patent fact, I discovered that the Creole 
women, descendants of the old Acadians, appre- 
ciated the sterling qualities of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, and found in them their ideals, leaving in 
a state of sins^le blessedness the more indolent, 
and perhaps less persuasive, Creole gentlemen. 
The results of these marriages are the gradual 
extinction of old family names; and in the not 
very far future the romance connected with these 
people will be a thing of the past, and the trav- 
eller, instead of thinking — 

" This is the little village famed of yore, 

With meadows rich in flocks, and plenteous grain, 

- Whose peasants knelt beside each vine-clad door, 
As the sweet Angelus rose over the plain," 



1 66 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

will be introduced to Mrs. Hezekiah Skinner, and 
partake of her baked beans. 

My informant in these matters was an educated 
Creole gentleman, and I must have the honesty 
to give his remarks in regard to these persistent 
" Yankees/' who, he said, "were always success- 
ful with the fair maidens, but invariably selected 
those who owned fine plantations, having in love, 
as well as in war, an eye to the main chance." 

About the middle of the afternoon I ran the 
sneak-box on to the sloping levee of Baton Rouge, 
the capital of Louisiana; and, locking the hatch, 
went to the post-office for letters, and to the 
stores for provisions. Returning to the levee, I 
found a good-natured crowd had taken posses- 
sion of my boat, and at once availed myself of the 
local information in regard to the chances of a 
passage through Bayou Manchac, which was 
only fifteen miles below the town. Each told a 
different story. One gentleman said, " You will 
have to get four niggers to lift your boat over the 
levee of Mr. Walker's plantation, and put it into 
Bayou Manchac, which is about one hundred 
yards from the banks of the Mississippi. Its 
mouth was filled up a long time ago, but when 
once in the bayou you can float down to the 
Amite River, and so on to the Gulf" Another 
voice contradicted this statement, exclaiming, 
" Why, the bayou is dried up for a distance of at 
least eight miles from its head." At this point a 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 67 

well-dressed gentleman advanced, and quietly 
said: "I live on the Bayou Manchac, and can as- 
sure you that after you have hauled your boat 
throuo:h the Woodstock Plantation of the Walker 
family, you will find water enough in the bayou 
to float down upon to the Amite River." 

The crowd now became fully alive to the dis- 
cussion of the geography of their locality. Each 
man who favored me with an opinion on the 
Manchac question contradicted his neighbor; 
which was only a renewal of old experiences, 
for I always found local knowledge of geogra- 
phy and distances of little value. As the debate 
ran high, I thought of D'Iberville, who had thor- 
oughly explored the short ba3^ou several genera- 
tions before, and who might now have enlightened 
these people in regard to a stream that ran 
through their own lands. D'Iberville was, how- 
ever, born in Canada, and probably had more 
time to look into such matters, or he would not 
have travelled several thousand miles to explore 
Louisiana. 

I thanked the company for their interest in 
the discussion, which, like the questions before 
a debating society, had ended only in opin- 
ions. I promised to let them know the truth 
of the matter if I visited Baton Rouge again, 
and pushing out into the current, pulled to- 
wards Woodstock Plantation, where I arrived 
soon after dark; but fearing to land on account 



l68 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

of the dogs, whose reception of a stranger in the 
dark was, to say the least, unceremonious, I tied 
up to a high bank, and ''turned in" for the night. 
Having left the wilderness and its protecting 
creeks and islands, I was destined to feel all the 
annoyances attending a camper in a cultivated 
and settled re^-ion. The steamboats tossed me 
about all night, so that morning was indeed wel- 
come, and having refreshed myself with a dip 
and a dejeuner, I climbed the bank, and was re- 
warded w^ith the sight of a noble mansion, with 
its gardens of blooming roses, and lawns of 
bright green grass. This was the Woodstock 
Plantation, of which I had heard so much. I 
leisurely approached the large establishment, 
breathing an atmosphere laden with the fragrance 
of roses and orange-blossoms, which seemed to 
grow sw^eeter with every step. Finding an old 
negro, I sent my card to his master, w^ith the 
request for information in regard to the Bayou 
Manchac. The young proprietor soon appeared 
with the ^"^ Report of the Secretary of War," 27th 
Congress, 3d session, page 21. December 30, 
1842. This pamphlet informed me that the bayou 
was filled up at its mouth by order of the govern- 
ment, in answer to a petition from the planters 
of the lower country along the bayou and Amite 
River, to prevent the overflow of their cane-flelds 
during freshets in the Mississippi River. We 
walked to a shallow depression near the house. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 69 

It was dry, and carpeted with short grass. "This," 
said Mr. Walker, " is the Bayou Manchac which 
D'Iberville descended in his boat after having 
explored the Mississippi probably as far as Red 
River. The bed of the bayou is noiv fifteen feet 
above the present stage of w^ater in the Missis- 
sippi." A field-hand was then called, who w^as 
said to be the best geographer in those parts, 
white or black. 

" Tell this gentleman what you know of the 
Bayou Manchac," said Mr. Walker, addressing 
the negro. 

"Well, sah!" the darky replied, "I jus hab 
looked at yer boat. Four ob us can lif him ober 
de levee, an' put him on de cart. Den wees 
mus done cart him fourteen miles 'long de 
Bayou Manchac to get to whar de warter is 
plenty fur him to fioat in. Dar is some places 
nearer dan dat, 'bout twelve miles off, whar dar 
is SOME warter, but de warter am in little spots, 
an' den you go on furder, an' dar is no warter iur 
de boat. Den all de way dar is trees dat falls 
across de bayou. Boss, you mus go all de four- 
teen miles to get to de warter, sure sartin." 

Mr. Walker informed me that for fourteen 
miles down the bayou the fall was six feet to the 
mile. At that distance from the Mississippi, sloop 
navigation commenced at a point called Hamp- 
ton's Landing, from which it w^as about six miles 
to the Amite River. The Amite River was nav- 



lyo FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

igated by light-draught vessels from Lake Pont- 
chartrain. The region about the Amite River 
possesses rich bottom-lands, and many of the 
descendants of the orig^inal French settlers of 
Louisiana own plantations along its banks. 

Mr. Walker then pointed to a long point of 
land some miles down the river, upon which the 
fertile fields of a plantation lay like patches of 
bright green velvet in the morning sun, and 
said : " Below that point a neighbor of mine found 
one of your northern boatmen dying in his boat. 
He rowed all the way from Philadelphia on abet, 
and if he had reached New Orleans would have 
won his five thousand dollars, but he died when 
only ninety-five miles from the city, and was 
buried by Adonis Le Blanc on that plantation." 

I had heard the story before. It had been told 
me by the river boatmen, and the newspapers of 
the country had also repeated it. The common 
version of it was, that a poor man, desirous of 
supporting his large family of children, had un- 
dertaken to row on a bet from Philadelphia to 
New Orleans. If successful, he was to receive 
five thousand dollars. The kind-hearted people 
along the river had shown much sympathy for 
Mr. John C. Cloud in his praiseworthy attempts 
to support his suffering family, and at any time 
during his voyage quite a liberal sum of money 
might have been collected from these generous 
men and women to aid him in his endeavor. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 171 

There was, however, something he preferred to 
money, and with which he was lavishly supplied, 
as we shall see hereafter. 

So much for rumor. Now let us examine 
facts. A short time before Mr. Cloud's death, 
two reporters of a western paper attempted to 
row to New Orleans in a small boat, but met with 
an untimely end, being run down by a steamboat. 
Their fate and Mr. Cloud's were quoted as pre- 
cedents to all canoeists and boatmen, and quite a 
feeling against this healthful exercise was grow- 
ing among the people. Several editors of popu- 
lar newspapers added to the excitement by warn- 
ings and forebodings. Believing that some 
imprudence had been the cause of Mr. Cloud's 
death, and forming my opinion of him from the 
tact of his undertaking such a voyage in August, 
— the season when the swamps are full of mala- 
ria, — I took the trouble to investigate the case, 
and made some discoveries which would have 
startled the sympathetic friends of this unfortu- 
nate man. 

One of the first thino^s that came to lio^ht was 
the fact that Mr. Cloud was not a married man. 
His family was a creation of his Imagination, 
and a most successful means of securing the 
sympathy and ready aid of those he met during 
his voyage, though his daily progress shows that 
neither sympathy nor money were what he craved, 
but that WHISKEY alone would " fill the bill." 



172 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Mr. Cloud had once been a sailor in the 
United States navy, but having retired from the 
cruel sea, he became an actor in such plays as 
"Black-eyed Susan" in one of the variety the- 
atres in Philadelphia. Mr. Charles D. Jones, of 
that city, who was connected with theatrical en- 
terprises, and knew Mr. Cloud well, was one day 
surprised by the latter gentleman, who declared 
he had a "bright idea," and only wanted a friend 
to stand by him to make it a sure thing. He 
proposed to row from Philadelphia to New Or- 
leans in a small boat. Mr. Jones was to act as 
his travelling agent, going on in advance, and 
informing the people of the coming of the great 
oarsman. When Mr. Cloud should arrive in 
any populous river-town, a theatrical perform- 
ance was to be given, the boatman of course 
to be the " star." Mr. Jones was to furnish the 
capital for all this, while Mr. Cloud was to share 
with his manager the profits of the exhibitions. 

A light Delaware River skitf, pointed at each 
end, was purchased, and Mr. Cloud left Phila- 
delphia in the month of August, promising his 
friend to arrive in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 
twelve or fourteen days. After waiting a few 
days to enable Mr. Cloud to get fairly started 
upon his voyage, which was to be made princi- 
pally by canals to the Alleghany River, the 
manager went to Pittsburgh with letters of in- 
troduction to the editors of that busy city. The 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 73 

representatives of the press kindly seconded Mr. 
Jones in advertising the coming of the great 
oarsman. Mr. Cloud was expected to appear 
in front of Pittsburgh on a certain day. A hall 
was engaged for his performance in the even- 
ino-. An immense amount of enthusiasm was 
worked up among the people of the city and 
the neighboring towns. Having done his duty 
to his colleague, Mr. Jones anxiously awaited 
the expected telegram from Cloud, announcing 
his approach to the city. No word came from 
the oarsman; and in vain the manager tele- 
graphed to the various towns along the route 
through which Mr. Cloud must have passed. 

On%he day that had been settled upon for the 
arrival of the boat before Pittsburgh, a large 
concourse of visitors gathered along the river- 
banks. Even the mayor of the city was present 
in his carriage among the expectant crowd. 
The clock struck the hour of noon, but the 
little Delaware skiff was nowhere to be seen; 
and, as the sun declined from the zenith, the 
people gradually dispersed, muttering, "Another 

humbug! " 

At midnight Mr. Jones retired in anything 
but an amiable mood. His professional honor 
had been wounded, and his industrious labors 
lost. Where was Cloud? Had the poor fel- 
low been murdered? What was his fate, and 
why did he not come up to time? Revolving 



174 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

these questions In his mind, the manager fell 
asleep; but he was roused before five o'clock in 
the morning by a servant knocking at his door 
to inform him that his "5/<2r" was in Alleghany 
City, opposite Pittsburgh. Mr. Jones went to 
look up his man, and found him in a state of 
intoxication in a drinkino^-saloon. A hard-look- 
ing set of fellows were perambulating the streets, 
bawling at the top of their voices, "^^ Arrival of 
John C. Cloud, the great oarsman ! Photographs 
for sale ! only twenty-five cents ! " 

When the intoxicated boatman had returned 
to a conversational state of mind, he explained 
that he had actually rowed as far as Harris- 
burgh, Pennsylvania, w^here he had been most 
generously entertained at the liquor saloons, and 
had been so fortunate as to make the acquaint- 
ance of some "good fellows" who had engaged 
to travel in advance of his boat, and sell his 
photographs, sharing with him in the profits 
of such sales. He had made his voyage from 
Harrisburgh to Alleghany City by rail, his boat 
being safely stowed in a car, and tenderly 
watched over by the red-shirted " good fel- 
lows " who had so generously taken him under 
their wing. The " great oarsman " had, in fact, 
rowed just about one-third of the distance be- 
tween Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. 

The disgusted manager left his man in charge 
of the new managers, and going at once to the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 75 

editors, explained how he had been duped, and 
begged to be ^^ let down gently '^ before the pub- 
lic. These gentlemen not only acceded to the 
request, but even offered to get up a "benefit" 
for Mr. Jones, who declined the honor, and 
waited only long enough in the city to see Mr. 
Cloud with his boat and whiskey fade out of 
sight down the Ohio, when he returned to Phil- 
adelphia considerably lighter in pocket, having 
provided funds for purchasing the boat and other 
necessaries, and full of righteous indignation 
against Mn Cloud and his ''bright ideaP 

The little skiff went on its way down the 
Ohio, and was met with enthusiasm at each 
landing. The citizens of Hickman, Kentucky, 
described the voyage of Mr. Cloud as one con- 
tinuous ovation. Five thousand people gathered 
along the banks below that town to welcome 
"the poor northern man who was rowing to 
New Orleans on a five-thousand-dollar bet, 
hoping to win his wager that he might have 
means to support his large family of children." 
One old gentleman seemed to have his doubts 
about the truth of this statement, " for," said he, 
"when the celebrated oarsman appeared, and 
landed, he repaired immediately to a low drink- 
ino--saloon, and announced that he was the 
greatest oarsman in America, (Xc. 
^ The "boys" about the town subscribed a 
fund, and invested it in five gallons of whiskey, 



176 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

which Cloud took aboard his skiff when he 
departed. He plainly stated that the conditions 
of the bet prevented his sleeping under a roof 
while on his way; so he curled himself up in 
his blankets and slept on the veranda floors. 
The man must have had great powers of en- 
durance, or he could not have rowed so long 
in the hot sun at that malarious season of the 
year. His chief sustenance was whiskey; and 
at one town, near Cairo, I was assured by the 
best authority, ten gallons of that fier}^ liquor 
were stowed away in his skiff. Such disregard 
of nature's laws soon told upon the plucky fel- 
low, and his voyage came to an end when almost 
in sight of his goal. The malaria he was breath- 
ing and the whiskey he was drinking set fire to 
his blood, and the fatal congestive chills were 
the inevitable result. 

The papers of New Orleans had announced 
the approach of the great oarsman, and the 
planters were ready to give him a cordial wel- 
come, when one day a man who was walking 
near the shore of the Mississippi, in the parish 
of Iberville, and looking out upon the river, 
saw a boat of a peculiar model whirling around 
in the eddies. He at once launched his boat 
and pushed out to the object which had excited 
his curiosity. Stretched upon the bottom of the 
strange craft was a man dressed in the garb 
of a northern boatman. At first he appeared 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 77 

to be dead; but a careful examination showed 
that life was not yet extinct. The unknown 
man was carried to the nearest plantation, and 
there, among strangers whose hearts beat kindly 
for the unfortunate boatman, John C. Cloud ex- 
pired without uttering one word. The coroner, 




Dying in his ^oat. 

Mr. Adonis Le Blanc, found upon the person of 
the dead man a memorandum-book which told 
of the distances made each day upon the river, 
while the entries of the closing days showed 
how the keeper of the log had suffered from 

12 



178 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

the " heavy shakes '■ occasioned by the malaria 
and his own imprudence. The story of the 
cruise was recorded on the boat. Men and 
women had written their names inside the frail 
shell, with the dates of her arrival at different 
localities along the route. I afterwards exam- 
ined the boat at Biloxi, on the Gulf of Mexico, 
where it was kept as a curiosity in the boat- 
house of a citizen of New Orleans. 

They buried the unfortunate man upon the 
plantation, and Mr. Clay Gourrier took charge 
of his effects. The most remarkable thing about 
this rowing match was the credulity of the peo- 
ple along the route. They accepted Cloud's 
statement without stopping to consider that if 
there were any truth in it, the other side, with 
their five thousand dollars at stake, would surely 
take some interest in the matter, and have men 
posted along the route to see that the bet was 
fairly won. The fact that no bet had been made 
never seemed to dawn upon them; but, like too 
many, they sympathized without reasoning. 

Being forced to abandon all hopes of taking 
the Bayou Manchac and the interesting country 
of the Acadians in my route southward, I rowed 
down the river, past the curious old town of 
Plaquemine, and by four o'clock in the afternoon 
commenced to search for an island or creek 
where a good camping-ground for Sunday might 
be found. The buildings of White Castle Plan- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 79 

tation soon arose on the right bank, and as I ap- 
proached the little cooperage-shop of the large 
estate, which was near the water, a kindly hail 
came from the master-cooper and his assistant. 
Acceding to their desire " to look at the boat," 
I let the two men drag her ashore, and while 
they examined the craft, I studied the representa- 
tives of two very different types of laboring-men. 
One was from Madison, Indiana; the other be- 
longed to the poor white class of the south. 
We built a fire near the boat, and passed half 
the nio^ht in conversation. 

These men gave me much valuable informa- 
tion about Louisiana. The southern cooper had 
lived much among the bayous and swamps of 
that region of the state subjected to overflow. 
He was an original character, and never so 
happy as when living a Robinson Crusoe life 
in the woods. His favorite expression seemed 
to be, "Oh, shucks!" and his yarns were so in- 
terlarded with this exclamation, that in giving 
one of his stories I must ask the reader to 
imagine that expressive utterance about every 
other word. Affectionately hugging his knee, 
and generously expectorating as he made a 
transfer of his quid from one side of his mouth 
to the other, he said : 

" A fellow don't always want company in the 
woods. If you have a pardner, he ort to be jes 
like yourself, or you'll be sartin to fall out. I 



l8o FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

was riving out shingles and coopers' stock once 
with a pardner, and times got inighty hard, so 
we turned fishermen. There was some piles 
standing in Plaquemine Bayou, and the drift 
stuff collected round them and made a sort of 
little island. Me and Bill Bates went to work 
and rived out some lengths of cypress, and built 
a snug shanty on top of the piles. As it wasn't 
real estate we was on, nobody couldn't drive us 
off; so we fished for the Plaquemine folks. 

"By-and-by a king-snake swimmed over to our 
island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. 
The cuss got kind of afiectionate, and after a 
while crawled right into our hut to catch flies 
and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd 
let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our 
moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of 
his time there. Bill Bates hadn't the manners of 
a hog, and he kept a-droppin' hints to me, every 
few days, that he'd ^ drap into that snake some 
night and squeeze the life out of him.' This 
made me mad, and I nat'rally tuck the snake's 
part, particularly as he would gobble up and 
crush the neck of every water-snake that cum 
ashore on our island. One thing led to another, 
till Bill Bates swore he'd kill my snake. Sez 
I to him, ^Billum,' (I always called him Billum 
when I MEANT BiZNESS,) ^ cf you hurt a hair 
of the head of my snake, I'll hop on to you.' 
That settled our pardnership. Bill Bates*knowed 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. l8l 

what I meant, and he gathered up his traps and 
skedaddled. 

" Then I went to New Orleans, and out to 
Lake Pontchartrain, to fish for market. A lot 
of cussed Chinese was in the bizness, and when 
they found coarse fish in their nets, they'd kill 
'em and heave 'em overboard. Now, no man 's 
got a rite to waste anything, so we fishermen be- 
gun to pay sum attention to the opium-smokers 
in good arnest." 

Here I interrupted the speaker to ask him if 
it would be safe for me to travel alone through 
the fishino^-o-rounds of these Chinese. 

"Oh, shucks! safe enuf now," he answered. 
" Once they was a bad set; but a change has 
cum over 'em — they're civilized now." 

A vision of schools and earnest missionar}^ 
work was before me while I asked how their 
civilization had been accomplished. 

"Oh, shucks! we dun it — we white fisher- 
men civilized 'em," was the emphatic reply; 
" and not a bit too soon either, for the waste- 
ful cusses got so bad they wasn't satisfied with 
chucking dead fish overboard, but would go on 
to the prairies, and after using the grass cabins 
we white fishermen had built to go into in bad 
weather, the bloody furiners would burn them 
up to bother us. They thort they'd drive us 
teetota|ly out of the diggins; so we thort it was 
time to* civilize 'em. We hid in the long 



1 82 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ofrass fur a few nio^hts and watched the cusses. 
One morninof- a Chinaman was found dead in a 
cabin. Pretty soon after, one or two others was 
found floatin' round loose, in the same way; and 
after that lesson or two the fellers got civilized; 
and you needn't fear goin' among 'em now, fur 
they're harmless- as kittens. They don't kill 
coarse fish now fur the fun of it. Oh, shucks! 
there's nothin' like a little healthy civilization 
fur Chinamen and Injuns. They both needs it, 
and, any way, this is a white man's country." 

"And what of negroes?" I asked. 

" Oh, the niggers is good enuf, ef you let 'em 
alone. The Carpet-baggers from up north has 
filled their heads with all kinds of stuff, so now 
they think, nat'rally enuf, that they ought to be 
office-holders, when they can't read or write no 
more than I can. I'd like to take a hand civ- 
ilizing some of them Carpet-baggers! They 
needs it more than the Chinamen or Injuns." 

During part of the evening, Mr. Sewall, the 
nephew of the owner of the plantation, was with 
us round our camp-fire. We spoke of Long- 
fellow's Evangeline, the bay-tree, and Atchafa- 
laya River, which he assured me was slowly 
widening its current, and would in time, per- 
haps, become the main river of the basin, and 
finally deprive the Mississippi of a large portion 
:of its waters. From his boyhood he had watched 
the falling in of the banks with the widening and 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 83 

increasing of the strength of the current of the 
Atchafalaya Bayou. Once it was impassable for 
steamers; but a little dredging opened the way, 
while the Mississippi and Red rivers had both 
contributed to its volume of water until it had 
deepened sufficiently for United States gunboats 
to ascend it during the late war. It follows the 
shortest course from the mouth of Red River to 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

I left White Castle Plantation early on Mon- 
day morning, when I discovered a lot of fine 
sweet-potatoes stowed away in the hold of my 
boat. The northern cooper had purchased them 
during the night, and having too much delicacy 
to speak of his gift, secreted them in the boat. 
I fully appreciated this kind act, knowing it to 
be a mark of the poor man's sympathy for his 
northern countryman. The levee for miles was 
lined with negroes and white men gathering a 
harvest of firewood from the drift stuff. One 
old negro, catching sight of my boat, called out 
to his companion, "Randal, look at dat boat! 
De longer we libs, de mor you sees. What 
sort o' queer boat is she?" 

Twenty miles below White Castle Plantation 
is the valuable sugar estate called Houmas, the 
property of General Wade Hampton and Colonel 
J. T. Preston. General Hampton does not re- 
side upon his plantation, but makes Georgia his 
home. Beyond Houmas the parish of St. James 



184 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

skirts the river for twenty miles. Three miles 
back from the river, on the left side of the Missis- 
sippi, and fifty-five miles from New^ Orleans, is the 
little settlement of Grand Point, the place most 
famed in St. James for perique tobacco. The 
first settler w^ho had the hardihood to enter these 
solitudes w^as named Maximilian Roussel. He 
purchased a small tract of land from the gov- 
ernment, and in the year 1824 shouldered his 
axe and camping-utensils, and started for his 
new domain. He soon built a hut, and at once 
began the laborious task of clearing his land, 
which was located in a dense cypress swamp, 
alive with wild beasts and allio^ators. A rouo^h 
house w\as completed at the end of a year, and 
into it Roussel moved his family, consisting of 
a wife and four children. Here " he lived till 
he died^^ as it has been expressively said. 

Octave and Louis, two of his sons, and both 
now grandfathers, still live on the old place, and 
are highly respected. Only a few years ago the 
old homestead echoed to the voices of five of 
Roussel's sons, with their families; but death 
has taken two, one has removed, and two only 
now remain to relate the history of the almost 
unimaginable hardships encountered by the old 
and hardy pioneer. 

There are at present nineteen families in the 
settlement, and they are all engaged in the cul- 
tivation of perique tobacco. An average farm 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 85 

on Grant Point consists of eight acres, and the 
average yield of manufactured tobacco is four 
hundred pounds to the acre. These simple- 
hearted people seem to be very happy and con- 
tent. They have no saloons or stores of any 
kind, but their place is well filled with a neat 
Catholic church and a substantial school-house. 
Every man, w^oman, and child is a devout Roman 
Catholic, and in their daily intercourse with each 
other the stranger among them hears a patois 
somethino^ like the French lang^uasfe. The whole 
of the land cultivated by these people would not 
make more than an average farm in the north, 
while compared with the vast sugar estates on 
every side of it the dimensions are infinitesimal. 

Villages were now picturesquely grouped 
along the shores, the most conspicuous feature 
in each being the large Catholic church, showing 
the religious belief of the people. Curious little 
stores were perched behind the now high banks 
of the levee. The signs over the doors bore such 
inscriptions as, " The Red Store," " The White 
Store," " St. John's Store," " Poor Family Store," 
&c. Busy life was seen on every side, but here, 
as elsewhere in the south, men seemed always to 
have time to give a civil answer to any necessary 
inquiries. 

Only a month after I had descended this part 
of the river. Captain Boyton, clothed in his 
famous swimming-suit, paddled his way down 



l86 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

the current from Bayou Goula to New Orleans, 
a distance of one hundred miles. The incidents 
of this curious voyage are now a part of the 
river's history, and this seems the place for the 
brave captain to tell his story. He says: 

" I arrived at Bayou Goula on the ^ Bismarck,' 
about six o'clock on Thursday m.orning; and, 
after considerable delay, succeeded in obtaining 
quarters at the Buena Vista Hotel in that village. 
At that point I engaged the services of a colored 
man named Brown, to pilot me down the river. 
At ten o'clock I took a breakfast, consisting of 
five eggs, bread, and a glass of beer, and ate 
nothing else during the day. At five o'clock 
precisely I took to the water and began my trip 
down to the city of New Orleans — a trip which 
proved to be a much more arduous one than I 
had anticipated, in consequence of the want of 
buoyancy in the water, the terrible counter-cur- 
rents, and the large ainount of drift-wood. It 
was some time before I could master the diffi- 
culty about the drift-wood, and at one time I Vvas 
so annoyed and bruised by the floating debris, 
that I became somewhat apprehensive about the 
success of my enterprise. In some of the strong 
eddies particularly the logs played such fantastic 
tricks, rolling over and over with their jagged limbs 
and again standing upon their ends, that I feared I 
must either be carried under, or have my dress 
stripped completely ofi'. By constant watching, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



187 



however, I was enabled to steer out of harm's w^ay 
and to keep steadily moving down the stream. 

" Above Donaldsonville I was met by a fleet 
of boats filled with spectators, who accompanied 
me down to that point, which I reached about 
eight o'clock in the evening. The town w^as 
illuminated, and the citizens tendered me a polite 
invitation to land and take supper; but of course 
I was obliged to decline, accepting in lieu a drink 
and a sandwich. Of the sandwich I ate only the 
bread. 




BOYTON DESCENDING THE y^vllSSISSI PPI. 



1 88 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

"BelowDonaldsonvillel was caught in the great 
eddy. It was about four o'clock in the morning 
when I got into it, and it was good daylight 
before I succeeded in o^ettins^ out asfain into the 
down-stream current. It was a singular sensa- 
tion, this going round and round over the same 
ground, so to speak, and for the life of me I could 
not understand how I seemed now and then to 
be passing the same plantation-houses and famil- 
iar landmarks. The skiff which accompanied 
me was also in the same predicament, sometimes 
pulling up and sometimes pulling down stream. 
I tried to guide myself by the north star, but 
before I was aware of it that luminar}^ which 
ought to have kept directly in my front, would 
pop up, as it were, behind me, and destroy all 
my calculations. When daylight came, how- 
ever, and the fog lifted sufficiently, I was able to 
paddle out into the middle of the stream, and 
keep down it once again. 

" Early in the morning, above Bonnet Carre, I 
asked several persons on shore for some coffee, 
but most of them seemed too much excited to 
attend to this pressing want of mine. At last a 
gentleman who spoke French got his wife to go 
and get me a cup of coffee, after drinking which 
I felt greatly refreshed. The sandwich and drink 
at Donaldsonville, and this cup of coffee next 
morning, were the only things in the shape of 
refreshments which I took during the twenty- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 89 

four hours' voyage. At times I was almost cer- 
tain I was being attacked by alligators, and 
thouo-ht I should have to use the knife with 
which I always go armed, but it only proved 
to be the annoying drift-wood in which I would 
become fearfully entangled. I only suffered 
from the cold in my feet. These I warmed, 
however, after the sun came out, by inflating the 
lower part of my dress, and holding them up out 
of the water. 

^^ The banks all along the way were crowded 
with people to see me pass down. At one point, 
when I had allowed the air to escape from the 
lower part of my dress, and was going along rap- 
idly, with nothing showing above water but my 
head and my paddle, I met a skitf, which con- 
tained a negro man and woman, who were 
crossing the river. The woman became fear- 
fully alarmed, and her screams could have been 
heard for miles away. The man pulled for dear 
life, the woman in the stern acting the cockswain, 
and uro^inor the boat forward in the funniest man- 
ner possible. 

"While in the great eddy I drifted into an 
immense flock of ducks, and but for the noise 
made by those in the skifl' I could easily have 
caught several of them, as they w^ere not at all 
disturbed by my presence, but swam leisurely 
all about me. 

"At the Red Church, the wind blowing up 



190 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

against the current kicked up a nasty sea, which 
gave me a great deal of trouble. By sinking 
down very low, however, and allowing only my 
head above water, and taking the shower-bath as 
it came upon me continuously, I was enabled to 
keep up my headway down stream. When at 
my best speed I easily kept ahead of the boats, 
going sometimes at the rate of seven miles an 
hour without difficulty. 

" This feat was a much more arduous one than 
my trip across the English Channel. Then I 
only slept two hours, and was up again, feeling all 
right; but when this thing was over I slept all 
night, had a refreshing bath, and still suffered 
from fatigue, to say nothing of my swollen wrists 
and neck-glands." 

Having finished his remarkable voyage suc- 
cessfully, Captain Boyton concluded that his 
life-saving dress had been fully tested in Amer- 
ica, and determined to rest on his laurels, and 
avoid Mississippi debris in future. In conse- 
quence of being caught in the eddy below Don- 
aldsonville, this great swimmer estimated the 
distance he traversed from Bayou Goula to 
New Orleans as fully one hundred and twenty 
miles.* 

About dusk I rowed into a grove of young 

* Since this voyage ended, Captain Boyton has, in the same 
manner, successfully descended the Ohio and the Mississippi 
rivers from Cairo to New Orleans. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I9I 

willows, on the left bank of the river, on the 
Sheparcl Plantation. My boat was soon securely 
fastened to a tree, and having partaken of my 
frugal meal I retired. A comfortable night's 
rest was, however, out of the question, for the 
passing steamers tossed me about in a most 
unceremonious manner, seeming to me in my 
dreams to be chanting for their lullaby, " Rock- 
a-by baby on the tree-top." Indeed, the baby on 
the tree-top was in an enviable position compared 
with my kaleidoscopic movements among the 
swashy seas. Many visions were before me that 
night, of the numerous little sufferers who are 
daily slung backwards and forwards in those 
pernicious instruments of torture called cradles. 
Memory brought also another picture I hoped 
it had been my good fortune to forget. It was a 
scene on the veranda of a country house. Five 
sisters, all pretty girls, whose grace and vivacity 
I had often admired, were there, each in her 
rocking-chair, and each swinging to and fro, as 
though perpetual motion had been discovered. 
Why must an American woman have a rocking- 
chair? In no other country in the world, except- 
ino- amono; the Creoles of South America, is this 
awkward piece of furniture so popular. Burn 
the cradles and taboo the graceless rocking-chair, 
and our children will have steadier heads and our 
women learn the attractive grace of quiet ease. 
The following day I struggled against head 



192 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

winds and swashy seas, until their combined 
forces proved too much for me, and succumbing 
as amiably as possible under the circumstances, 
the little white boat was run ashore on the Picou 
Plantation, where the coast was fortunately low. 
The rain and wind held me prisoner there until 
midnight, when, with a rising moon to cheer m.e, 
I forced a passage through the blockade of drift- 
\vood, and being once more on the river, waved 
an adieu to my last camp on the Mississippi. 

I was now only thirty-seven miles from New 
Orleans. Rowing rapidly down the broad river, 
now shrouded in gloom, with the fleecy scuds 
flying overhead in the stormy firmament, I fully 
realized that I was soon to leave the noble stream 
which had borne me so long and so safely upon 
its bosom. A thunder-shower rose in the west, 
its massive blackness lighted by the vivid flashes 
which played over its surface. The houses of the 
planters along the river's bank were enveloped 
in foliage, and the air was so redolent with the 
fraofrance of flowers that I seemed to be floatinof 
through an Eden. The wind and the clouds 
disappeared together, and a glorious sunrise gave 
promise of a perfect day. With the light came 
life. Where all had been silent and restful, man 
and beast now made known their presence. The 
risinor sun seemed to be the sio^nal for takins: 
hold where they had let go the night before. 
The crowing of cocks, the cries of plantation 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. I93 

hands, the hungry neigh of horses, the hundred 
and one sounds of this work-a-day world, greeted 
my ears, while my eyes, taking a rapid survey 
of the surrounding steamers, coal-arks, and 
barges of every description, carried quickly to 
my brain the intelligence that I was near the 
Crescent City of the Gulf. Soon forests of masts 
rose upon the horizon, for there were vessels of 
all nations ranged along the levee of this once 
prosperous city. 

Anxious to escape the officious kindness al- 
ways encountered about the docks of southern 
cities, I peered about, hoping to find some quiet 
corner in which to moor my floating home. Near 
the foot of Louisiana Avenue I saw the fine 
boat-house of the " Southern Boat Club," and 
being pleasantly hailed by one of its members, 
hove to, and told him of my perplexity. With ' 
the ever ready hospitality of a southerner, he as- 
sured me that the boat-house was at my disposal; 
and calling a friend to assist, we easily hauled 
the duck-boat out of the w^ater, up the inclined 
plane. Into her new quarters. 

The row upon the Mississippi from Its junction 
with the Ohio down to New Orleans, including 
many stoppages, had occupied nineteen days, 
and had been accelerated by considerable night 
voyaging. The flow of the Mississippi was 
about one third faster than that of the Ohio. 
Lloyd's River Map gives the distance from the 

13 



194 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

mouth of the Ohio to the centre of New Orleans 
as ten hundred and fift3^-five miles, but the sur-^ 
ve3^s of the United States Engineer Corps make 
this crooked route ten hundred and twenty miles 
only. 

My floating home being now in good hands, 
its captain turned his back on the water, and took 
a turn on land, leaving the river bounded by its 
narrow horizon, but teeming with a strange, no- 
madic life, the various types of which afforded a 
field where much gleaning would end in but a 
scanty harvest of good. Already my ears caught, 
in fancy, the sound of the restless waves of the 
briny waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and my spirits 
rose at the prospect of the broader experiences 
about to be encountered. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 95 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NEW ORLEANS. 

BIENVILLE AND THE CITY OF THE PAST. — FRENCH AND SPANISH 
RULE IN THE NEW WORLD. — LOUISIANA CEDED TO THE UNITED 
STATES. — CAPTAIN EADS AND HIS JETTIES. — TRANSPORTA- 
TIONS OF CEREALS TO EUROPE. — CHARLES MORGAN. — CREOLE 
TYPES OF CITIZENS. — LEVEES AND CRAWFISH.' — DRAINAGE 
OF THE CITY INTO LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. 

THIS was my fifth visit to New Orleans, and 
walking through its quaint streets I observed 
many changes of an undesirable nature, the inev- 
itable consequences of political misrule. As the 
past of the city loomed up before me, the various 
scenes of bloodshed, crime, and misery enacted, 
shifted like pictures in a panorama before m}^ 
mind's eye. I saw far back in the distance an 
indomitable man, faint and discouraged, after the 
terrible sufferings of a winter at a bleak fort in 
the wilderness, drag his weary limbs to the spot 
where New Orleans now stands, and defiantly 
unfurling the flag of France, determined to estab- 
lish the capital of Louisiana on the treacherous 
banks of the Mississippi. Such was Bienville, 
the hardy son of a Canadian father. 

A little later we have the New Orleans of 



196 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

1723. It is a low swamp, overgrown with rag- 
ged forests, and cut up into a thousand islands 
by ruts and pools of stagnant water. There is a 
small cleared space along the river's channel; 
but even this being only partly reclaimed from 
the surrounding marsh, is often inundated. It is 
cut up into square patches, round each of which 
runs a ditch of black mud and refuse, which, 
lying exposed to the rays of an almost tropical 
sun, sends forth unwholesome odors, and invites 
pestilence. 

There is a palisade around the city, and a great 
moat; and here, with the tall, green grasses 
growing up to their humble doors, live graceful 
ladies and noble gentlemen, representatives of 
that nation so famed for finesse of manner and 
stately grace. It is an odd picture this rough 
doorway, surrounded with reeds and swamps, 
mud and misery, and crowned with the beauty 
of a fair French maiden, who steps daintily, with 
Parisian ease, upon the highway of the new world. 

She is not, however, alone in her exile. Along 
the banks of the Mississippi, for miles beyond the 
city, stretch the fertile plantations of the represen- 
tatives of aristocratic French families. The rich 
lands are worked by negro slaves, who, fresh from 
the African coast, walk erect before their mas- 
ters, being strangers to the abject, crouching gait 
which a century of slavery afterwards imposes 
upon them. No worship save the Catholic is 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 1 97 

allowed, and to remind the people of their duty 
wooden crosses are erected on every side. 

The next picture of New Orleans is in 1792. 
It has passed into other hands now, for the king 
of France has ceded it, with the territory of Lou- 
isiana, to his cousin of Spain, and has in fact, 
with a single stroke of the pen, stripped himself 
of possessions extending from the mouth of the 
Mississippi to the St. Lawrence. The type of civ- 
ilization is now changed, and we see things mov- 
ing in the iron groove of Spanish bigotry. The 
very architecture changes with the new rule, and 
the houses seem grim and fortress-like, while the 
cadaverous-cheeked Spaniard stands in the gloom 
with his hand upon his sword, one of the six 
thousand souls now within this ill-drained city. 
Successive Spanish governors hold their sway 
under the Spanish king 5 and then the Spaniard 
goes his way. 

Spanish civilization cannot take so firm a hold 
in New Orleans as the French, and many pri- 
vately pray for the old banner, until at last 
France herself determines to again possess her 
old territory. Spain, knowing opposition to be 
useless, and heartily sick of this distant colony, 
so hard to govern and so near the quarrelsome 
Americans, who seem ready to fulfil their threat 
of taking New Orleans by force if their commer- 
cial Interests are Interfered with, yields a ready 
assent. The city becomes the property of Napo- 



198 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

leon the Great; but hardly have the papers been 
signed, when, in 1803, it is ceded to the United 
States. Half a generation later the conflicting 
national elements are settled into something^ like 
harmony, and the state of Louisiana has a popu- 
lation of fifty thousand souls. 

In 1812 war is declared between Great Britain 
and the United States. Soon after, General An- 
drew Jackson wins a victory over the English on 
the lowlands near New Orleans, when, with the 
raw troops of the river states, he drives off*, and 
sends home, fifteen thousand skilled British sol- 
diers. Bowing his laurel-crowned head before 
the crowd assembled to do him honor, the brave 
American general receives the benediction of the 
venerable abbe, while his memory is kept ever 
fresh in the public mind by the grand equestrian 
statue which now stands a monument to his 
prowess. 

But the New Orleans of to-day is not like any 
of these w^e have seen. The Crescent City has 
passed beyond the knowledge of even Jackson 
himself, and most startled would the old general 
be could he noAV walk its busy streets. Rising 
steadily, though slowly, from the effects of the 
civil war, her position as a port insures a glori- 
ous future. Much, of course, depends upon the 
success of Captain Eads in keeping open a deep 
channel from the mouth of the Mississippi River 
to the Gulf of Mexico. This great river deposits 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



199 



a large amount of alluvium at its North-east, 
South-east, South, and South-west Passes, which 
are the principal mouths of the Mississippi. 
When the light alluvium held in suspension in 
the fresh water of the river meets the denser 
briny water of the Gulf, it is precipitated to the 
bottom, and builds up a shoal, or bar, upon which 
vessels drawing sixteen feet of water, in the 
deepest channel, frequently stick fast for weeks 
at a time. In consequence of these bars, so fre- 
quently forming, deep sea-going vessels run the 
risk of most unprofitable delay in ascending the 
river to New Orleans. 

Captain Eads, the projector of the great St. 
Louis bridge, which cost some seven or more 
millions of dollars, has succeeded, by narrowing 
and confining the river's current at the South 
Pass by means of artificial jetties, in scouring 
out the channel from a depth of about seven 
feet to one of more than twenty feet. Thus the 
most shoal pass has already become the deepest 
entrance to the Mississippi. If the results of 
Captain Eads's most wonderful success can be 
maintained, New Orleans will be able to support 
a fleet of European steamers, while the cereals 
and cotton of the river basins tributary to New 
Orleans will be exported from that city directly 
to Europe, instead of being subjected to a costly 
transportation by rail across the country to New 
York, Baltimore, and other Atlantic ports. Lim- 



200 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ited space forbids my presenting figures to sup- 
port the theories of the people of New Orleans, 
but they are of the most interesting nature. A 
few words from an intelligent Kentuckian will 
express the views of many of the people of that 
state in regard to the system of transportation. 
He says: 

" Nearly all the products of Kentucky have 
their prices determined by the cost of transporta- 
tion to the great centres of population along the 
Atlantic seaboard, or beyond the sea. Its to- 
bacco, pork, grain, and some of the costlier 
woods, with other products, find their principal 
markets In Europe, while cattle, and to a certain 
extent the other agricultural products of the state, 
have their values determined by the cost of 
transportation to the American Atlantic markets. 
Hitherto this access to the domestic and foreign 
markets of the Atlantic shores has been had 
by way of the railway systems which traverse 
the region north of Kentucky, and from which 
the state has been divided by opposing interests 
and the physical barrier of the Ohio River. 
All the development of the state has taken place 
under these disadvantages. 

"A comparison of the tables of cost, given 
below, will show that the complete opening of 
the mouth of the Mississippi to ocean ships will 
result in the enfranchisement of the productions 
of Kentucky in an extraordinary way. They are 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 20I 

taken from published freight rates, and give time 
and cost of transit from St. Paul, on the Missis- 
sippi, about two thousand miles from New 
Orleans, to Liverpool by the two routes: one 
being by rail, lake, canal, and ocean* the other 
by river and ocean : 

Cost per 
bushel. Time. 

Cents. Days. 

From St. Paul to Chicago (by rail), .18 4 

do. Chicago to Buffalo (by lake), . 8 6 

do. Buffalo to New York (by canal), . 14 24 

do. N.York to Liverpool (by ocean), 16 12 

Elevator, or transshipment charges: 

Chicago, 2 2 

Buffalo, 2 2 

New York, 4 2 

Total, 64 52 



From St. Paul to New Orleans (via 
river), 1993 miles, . . 
do. New Orleans to Liverpool, 
Elevator charges. New Orleans, 



Cost per 
bushel. 


Time. 


Cents. 


Days. 


^^ia 




. 18 


10 


. 20 


20 


. 2 


I 



Total 



40 31 



" Here is a saving by direct trade of twenty- 
four cents per bushel, or eight shillings per quar- 



202 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ter, and a saving of twenty-one days in time. To 
be fair, I have taken the extreme point; but the 
nearer the grain is to the Gulf, the cheaper the 
transportation. At the present time the freight 
rates from the lower Ohio to Liverpool would 
permit the profitable shipment of the canal coal, 
and native woods of different species, to Europe 
with one transshipment at New Orleans." 

The gross receipts of cotton in New Orleans 
amount to thirty-three and one-third per cent, 
of the production of the entire country. In 
1859-60 the receipts and exports of cotton from 
New Orleans exceeded two and a quarter mil- 
lions of bales, the value of which was over one 
hundred millions of dollars. In the season of 
1871-72 the cotton crop amounted to two mil- 
lion nine hundred and seventy- four thousand 
bales, one-third of which passed through New 
Orleans. A vast amount of other products, such 
as sugar, tobacco, flour, pork, &c., is received 
at New Orleans and sent abroad. Besides this 
export trade. New Orleans imports coffee, salt, 
sugar, iron, dr37-goods, and liquors, to the aver- 
age yearly value of seventeen millions of dollars. 

In 1878 two hundred and forty-seven million 
four hundred and twenty-four thousand bushels 
of grain were received at the Atlantic ports of 
the United States from the interior. This great 
bulk of grain represented a portion only of the 
cereals actually raised in the whole country. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 203 

The largest portion of it was produced in the 
states tributary to the Mississippi River and its 
branches. This statement will give an idea of 
what mio^ht be saved to forei2:n consumers if a 
part of this great crop went down the natural 
water-way to New Orleans. In the same year, 
steamboats were freighting barrels of merchan- 
dise at fifty cents per barrel for fifteen hundred 
miles from New Orleans to up-river ports. This 
shows at what low rates freights can be trans- 
ported on western rivers. 

Each city has its representative men, and New 
Orleans has one who has done much to build 
up the great commercial and transportation in- 
terests of the Southwest. An unassumino- man, 
destitute of means, went to the South many 
years ago. Uprightness in dealing with his fel- 
low-man, industry in business, and large and 
comprehensive views, marked his career. Step 
by step he fought his way up from a humble 
station in life to one of the grandest positions 
that has ever been attained by a self-made man. 
More than one state feels the results of his tire- 
less energy and successful commercial schemes. 
He is now the sole proprietor of two railroads, 
and the owner of a magnificent fleet of steamers 
which unite the ports of New York and New 
Orleans with the long seaboard of Texas. 

So skilfully has this man conducted the details 
of the great enterprises he has created, that dur- 



:504 iFOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ing a term of many years not one human life has 
been lost upon sea or land by the mismanage- 
ment of any of his numerous agents. He is 
now past eighty; but this remarkable man, with 
his tireless brain, goes persistently on, and within 
fourteen months past contracted for the building 
of two fine iron steamers, and nearly completed 
two more for ocean trade. A New Orleans 
paper asserts that within the same period " he 
has elevated his Louisiana Railroad bed, along 
its route for twenty miles, above the highest 
water-mark of overflows, and has converted a 
shallow bayou between Galveston and Houston, 
Texas, into a deep stream, navigable for his 
largest vessels. On these works he expended 
over two millions of dollars." 

His shops for the construction of railroad 
stock, and for the repairing of his steamships, 
are in Louisiana, where he employs over one 
thousand workmen. In compliment to the vir- 
tues of this modest, energetic man, to w^hom the 
people of the Southw^est owe so much, the citi- 
zens of Brashear, in the southwestern part of 
Louisiana, have changed the name of their town 
to Morgan City. May the last days of Charles 
Morgan be blessed with the happy conscious- 
ness that he deserves the reward of a well- 
spent life! 

The winter climate of New Orleans is de- 
lightful, and many persons leave New England's 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 205 

cruel east winds to breathe its soft air and rejoice 
in its sunshine. These pale-faced invalids are 
strangely grouped in the quaint old streets with 
the peculiar people of the city, and add an- 
other to the many types already there. The 
New Orleans market furnishes, perhaps, the 
best opportunit}" for the ethnological student, for 
there strange motley groups are always to be 
found. Even the cries are in the quaint voices 
of a foreign city, and it seems almost impos- 
sible to imagine that one is in America. 

We see the Sicilian fruit-seller with his na- 
tive dialect; the brisk French madame with her 
dainty stall; the mild-eyed Louisiana Indian 
woman with her sack of gumbo spread out be- 
fore her; the fish-dealer with his wooden bench 
and odd patois; the dark-haired Creole lady 
with her servant gliding here and there; the 
old Spanish gentleman with the blood of Cas- 
tile tingling in his veins; the graceful French 
dame in her becoming toilet; the Hebrew 
woman with her dark eyes and rich olive com- 
plexion; the pure Anglo-Saxon type, ever dis- 
tinguishable from all others; and, swarming 
among them all, the irrepressible negro, — him 
you find in every size, shape, and shade, from 
the tiny yellow pickaninny to his rotund and 
inky grandmother, from the lazy wharf-darky, 
half clad in both mind and body, to the digni- 
fied colored policeman, who patrols with officious 



2o6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

gravity the city streets, — in freedom or slavery, 
north or south, in sunshine or out of it, ever 
the same easy, improvident race; ever the same 
gleaming teeth and ready "Yes, sah! 'pon my 
word, sah! " and ever the same tardiness to do. 

Leaving the busy, surging mass of humanity, 
each so eager to buy or sell, the visitor to New 
Orleans will find a great contrast of scene in 
the quiet cemeteries with their high Avails of 
shelves, where the dead are laid away in closely 
cemented tombs built one over the other, and 
all above the ground, to be safe from the en- 
croachment of water, the ever-pervading foe of 
New Orleans. Not only must the dead be 
stowed away above-ground, but the living must 
wage a daily wiar against this insidious foe, and 
watch with vis^ilance their levees. 

Notwithstanding all that has been said in 
regard to the enervating effects of a southern 
climate, the inhabitants of the state of Louis- 
iana have shown a pertinacity in maintaining 
their levee system which is almost unexampled. 
They have always asserted their rights to the 
lowlands in which thev live, and have under 
the most trying circumstances braved inunda- 
tion. They have built more than one thousand 
five hundred miles of levees within the state 
limits. The state engineer corps is always at 
work along the banks of the Mississippi and 
its important bayous. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 207 

The work of levee-building has been pushed 
ahead when a thousand evils beset the com- 
munity. Accurate and detailed surveys are a 
constant necessity to prevent inundation. The 
cost-value of the present system is seven mil- 
lions of dollars, and as much more is needed to 
make it perfect. During the civil war millions 
of cubic feet of levees were destroyed; but the 
state in her impoverished condition has not only 
rebuilt the old levees, but added new ones in 
the intervening years, showing an industry and 
energy we must all appreciate. 

The water has an assistant in its cruel in- 
roads, and the peace of mind of the property- 
holders along the lower Mississippi is constantly 
disturbed by the presence of a burrowing pest 
which lives in the artificial dikes, and is al- 
ways working for their destruction. This little 
animal is the crawfish {Astacus Mississifpien- 
sis) of the western states, and bores its way both 
vertically and laterally into the levees. This 
species of crawiish builds a habitation nearly a 
foot in height on the surface of the ground, to 
which it retreats, at times, during high water. 
The Mississippi crawfish is about four inches in 
length, and has all the appearance of a lobster; 
its breeding habits being also similar. The 
female crawfish, like the lobster, travels about 
with her eggs held in peculiar arm-like or- 
gans under her jointed tail, where they arc 



2o8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

protected from being devoured by other ani- 
mals. There they remain until hatched; but 
the young crawfish does not experience the met- 
amorphosis peculiar to most decapods. 

These animals open permanent drains in the 
levees, through which the water finds its way, 
slov/ly at first, then rapidly, until it undermines 
the bank, when a crevasse occurs, and many 
square miles of arable and forest lands are sub- 
inerc^ed for weeks at a time. The extermination 
of these mischievous pests seems an impossibil- 
ity, and they have cost the Mississippi property- 
owners immense sums of money since the levee 
system was first introduced upon the river. 

The city of New Orleans is built upon land 
about four feet below the level of the Mississippi 
River at high-water mark, and, running along 
the great bend in the river, forms a semicircle; 
and it is from this peculiar site it has gained 
the appellation of " Crescent City." The build- 
ings stretch back to the borders of Lake Pont- 
chartrain, which empties its waters into the Gulf 
of Mexico. All the drainage of the city is car- 
ried by means of canals into the lake, while the 
two largest of these canals are navigable for 
steamers of considerable size. Large cargoes 
are transported through these artificial w^ater- 
ways to the lake, and from it into the Gulf of 
Mexico, and so on along the southern coast to 
Florida. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 209 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO. 

LEAVE NEW ORLEANS. — THE ROUGHS AT WORK. — DETAINED AT 
NEW BASIN. — SADDLES INTRODUCES HIMSELF. — CAMPING ON 
LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. — THE LIGHT-HOUSE OF POINT AUX 
HERBES. — THE RIGOLETS. — MARSHES AND MOSQUITOES. — IM- 
PORTANT USE OF THE MOSQUITO AND BLOW-FLY. — ST. JO- 
SEPH'S LIGHT. — AN EXCITING PULL TO BAY ST. LOUIS. — A 
LIGHT-KEEPER LOST IN THE SEA. — BATTLE OF THE SHARKS. — 
BILOXI. — THE WATER-CRESS GARDEN. — LITTLE JENNIE. 

ONE of the chief charms in a boatman's life 
is its freedom, and what that freedom is no 
one knows until he throws aside the chains of 
every-day life, steps out of the worn ruts, and, 
with his kit beside him, his oar in his hand, 
feels himself master of his time, and free. 
There is one duty incumbent on the voyager, 
however, and that is to keep his face set upon 
his goal. Remembering this, I turned my back 
upon the beguiling city of New Orleans, with 
its orange groves and sweet flowers, its old 
buildings and modern civilization, its French 
cafes and bewitching oddities of every nature, 
taking away with me among my most pleasant 
memories the recollection of the kind hospital- 
ity of the gentlemen of the " Southern Boat 

14 



2IO FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Club," who presented me with a duplicate of 
the beautiful silk pendant of their club. 

My shortest route to the Gulf of Mexico was 
through New Basin Canal, six miles in length, 
into Lake Pontchartrain, and from there to the 
Gulf. If I had disembarked upon the levee, at 
the foot of Julia Street, when I arrived in New 
Orleans, there would have been only a short 
portage of three-quarters of a mile, in a direct 
line, to the canal; but my little craft had been 
left in the keeping of the Southern Boat Club, 
and the position of their boat-house made a 
portage of two miles a necessity. An express- 
wagon was procured, and, accompanied by Mr. 
Charles Deckbar, a member of the club, the 
little boat was safely carried through the city 
streets, and once more shot into her native 
element in the waters of New Basin Canal. 
The first part of this canal runs through the city 
proper, and then through a low swampy region 
out into the shallow lake Pontchartrain. At the 
terminus of New Basin Canal I found a small 
light-house, two or three hotels, and a few 
houses, makincr a little villao^e. 

A small fleet of schooners, which had brought 
lumber and firewood from Shieldsboro and other 
Gulf ports, was lying idly along the sides of the 
canal, awaiting a fair wind to assist them in mak- 
ing the return trip. 

I rowed out of the canal on to the lake; but 



>' 



^ i 



r 




FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 211 

fincUno- that the strong wind and rough waves 
were too much for my boat, I beat a hasty re- 
treat into the port of refuge, and, securing my 
bow-line to a pile, and my stern-line to the bob- 
stav of a wood-schooner, the '' Felicite," I pre- 
pared to ride out the gale under her bow. The 
skippers of the little fleet were very civil men. 
Some of them were of French and some of 
Spanish origin, while one or two were Germans. 
My charts interested them greatly; for though 
they had navigated their vessels for years upon 
the Gulf of Mexico, they had never seen a chart; 
and their astonishment was unbounded when I 
described to them the bottom of the sea for five 
hundred miles to the eastward, over a route I 
had never travelled. 

Night settled down upon us, and, as the wind 
lulled, the evening became lovely. Soon the 
quiet hamlet changed to a scene of merriment, 
as the gay people of the city drove out in their 
carriao^es to have a ^^ lark,''' as the sailors ex- 
pressed it; and which seemed to begin at the 
hotels with card-playing, dancing, drinking, and 
swearing, and to end in a general carousal. 
Men and women joined alike in the disreputa- 
ble scene, though I was informed that this was 
a respectable circle of society, compared with 
some which at times enlivened the neighbor- 
hood of Lake Pontchartrain. Thinking of the 
wonderful grades of society, I tried to sleep in 



212 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

my boat, not imagining that my peace was soon 
to be invaded by the lowest layer of that social 
strata. 

In spite of all my precautions an article had 
appeared that day in a New Orleans paper giv- 
ing a somewhat incorrect account of my vo3\age 
from Pittsburgh. The betting circles hearing 
that there was no bet upon my rowing feat, — 
if such a modest and unadventurous voyage 
could be called a feat, — decided that there 
must be some mystery connected with it; and 
political strife being uppermost in all men's 
minds, strangers were looked upon with suspi- 
cion, while rumors of my being a national gov- 
ernment spy found ready belief with the ignorant. 
Such a man would be an unwelcome visitor in 
the troubled districts where the " bull-dozing " 
system was compelling the enfranchised negro 
to vote the "right ticket." I had received an 
intimation of this feeling in the city, and had 
exerted myself to leave the neighborhood that 
day; but the treacherous east wind had left me 
in a most unprotected locality, floating in a nar- 
row canal, at the mercy of a lot of strange sail- 
ors. The sailor, though, has a generous heart, 
and usually demands fair play, while there is a 
natural antagonism between him and a landsman. 
I was, so to speak, one of them, and felt pretty 
sure that in case of any demonstration, honest 
" Jack Tar^^ would prove himself my friend. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 213 

It seemed at one time as though such an occa- 
sion was imminent. 

First came the sound of voices in the dis- 
tance; then, as they came nearer, I heard such 
questions as, "Where is the feller?" " Show us 
his boat, and we'll soon tell if he's a humbug! " 
"We'll put a head on him! " &c. All these ex- 
pressions being interlarded with oaths and foul 
language, gave any but a pleasant prospect of 
what was to be looked for at the hands of these 
city roughs, who clambered nimbly on to the 
deck of the Felicite to inquire for my where- 
abouts. 

The darkness seemed to shield me from their 
sight, and my good friend, the skipper of the 
wood-schooner, did not volunteer much infor- 
mation as they stood upon his forecastle only 
a few feet above my head. He told them they 
were on a fool's errand, if they came there to 
ask questions about a man who was minding 
his own business. The sailors all backed him, 
and the cook grew so bold as to consign the 
whole crowd, without mercy, to a place too hot 
for ears polite. 

Swaggering and swearing, the roughs went 
ashore to refresh their thirsty throats at a low 
grog-shop. Having fired up, they soon returned 
to the bank of the canal, and, as ill luck would 
have it, in the darkness of the night caught a 
gleam of my little white boat resting so peace- 



214 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

fully upon the foul water of the canal, made 
dark and heavy by the city's drainage. Then 
followed verbal shots, with various demonstra- 
tions, for half an hour. 

The worst fellow in the crowd was a member 
of a fire-company, and being a city policeman 
was supposed to be a protector of the peace. 
He was very insulting; but I turned his ques- 
tions and suspicions into ridicule, and, fortu- 
nately for me, he so often fell back upon the 
groggery for strength to fire away, that he was 
finally overpowered, and was given into the care 
of his bosom-friend, another blackguard, who 
dragged him tenderly from the scene. All this 
time the cook of the schooner had his hot water 
in readiness, threatening to scald the roughs if 
they succeeded in getting down to my boat. 

At last, much to my relief, the whole party 
went ofi* to " make a night of it," leaving me 
in the care of my protectors on the schooner, 
who had been busy deciding what they should 
do in case of any assault being made on me by 
the roughs, and showing their brawny arms in 
a menacing manner when the worst threats 
reached their ears. 

I did not know this at the time, but as I 
looked cautiously around after the unwelcome 
guests had left, I saw a watchman standing on 
ithe forecastle of the Felicite, looking anxiously 
-to the safety of the little white craft that by a 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 215 



slender cord held on to his vessel. All throuo-h 
the hours of that long night the kind-hearted 
master paced his deck; and then, as the sun 
arose, and the damp vapors settled to the earth, 
he hailed me with a pleasant "good morning;" 
and added, "if those devils had jumped on you 
last night I was to give one yell, and the whole 
fleet would have been on top o' 'em, and we would 
have backed every man's head down his own 
throat." This would have been, I thought, a 
singular but most eftective wa}^ of settling the 
difficulty, and a novel mode of thinning out the 
cit}^ police and fire department. 

During the day I was visited by a young 
northerner who had been for some time in New 
Orleans, but was very anxious to return to his 
home in Massachusetts. He had no money, but 
thought if I would allow^ him to accompany me 
as far as Florida he could ship as sailor from some 
port on a vessel bound for New York or Boston. 
Feeling sorry for the man who was homeless in 
a strange city, and finding he possessed some 
experience in salt-water navigation, I acceded 
to his request. Having purchased of the harbor- 
master, Captain M. H. Riddle, a light boat, which 
was sharp at both ends, and possessed the degree 
of sheer necessary for seaworthiness, the next 
thing in order was to make some important 
alterations in her, such as changing the thwarts, 
putting on half-decks, &c. As this labor would 



2l6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

detain me in the unpleasant neighborhood, I de- 
termined to secrete my own boat from the public 
gaze. To accomplish this, while favored by the 
darkness of night, I ran it into a side canal, 
where the watchman of the New Lake End 
Protection Levee lived in a floatino^ house. The 
duck-boat was drawn out of the water on to a 
low bank of the levee, and was then covered with 
reeds. So perfectly was my little craft secreted, 
that when a party of roughs came out to inter- 
view the " government spy," they actually stood 
beside the boat while inquiring of the watchman 
for its locality without discovering it. 

I now slept in peace at night; but during the 
day, while working upon the new boat in an- 
other locality, was much annoyed by curious 
persons, who hovered around, hoping to discover 
the meaning of my movements. On Saturday 
evening, January 22, I completed the joining and 
provisioning of the new skiff, which was called, 
in honor of the harbor-master, the " Riddle." 
The small local population about the mouth of 
the canal was in a great state of excitement. 
The fitting out of the " Riddle " by the supposed 
" government spy " furnished much food for re- 
flection, and new rumors were set afloat. I 
passed the first day of the week as quietly as 
possible amid the gala scenes of that section 
which knows no Sunday. All day long car- 
riages rolled out from New Orleans, bringing 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 217 

rollicking men and women to the lake, where, 
free from all restraint, the daily robe of hypoc- 
risy was thrown aside, and poor humanity ap- 
peared at its worst. Little squads of roughs 
came also at intervals, but their attempts to find 
me or my boat proved fruitless. 

The next day my shipmate, whom, for conven- 
ience, I will call Saddles, was not prepared to 
leave, as previously agreed upon, so I turned 
over to him the " Riddle," her outfit, provisions, 
&c., and instructed him to follow the west shore 
of Lake Pontchartrain until he found me, prefer- 
ring to trust myself to the tender mercies of the 
Chinese fishermen — whom the reader will re- 
member had been " civilized " — rather than to 
linger longer in the neighborhood of the New 
Orleans firemen and police corps. Saddles had 
hunted and fished upon the lake, and therefore 
felt confident he could easily find me the next 
day at Irish Bayou, two miles beyond the low 
" Point aux Herbes " Light-house. 

An hour before noon, on Monday, January 24, 
I rowed out of the canal, and most heartily con- 
gratulated myself upon escaping the trammels of 
too much civilization. A heavy fog covered the 
lake while I felt my way along the shore, passing 
the Pontchartrain railroad pier. The shoal bottom 
was covered with stumps of trees, and the coast 
was low and swampy, with occasional short, 
sandy beaches. My progress was slow on ac- 



2l8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

count of the fog; and at five p. m. I went Into 
camp, having first hauled the boat on to the land 
by means of a small w^atch-tackle. The low 
country was covered in places with coarse grass, 
and, as I ate my supper by the camp-fire, swarms 
of mosquitoes attacked me with such impetuosity 
and bloodthirstiness that I was glad to seek 
refuge in my boat. This proved, however, only 
a temporary relief, for the tormentors soon entered 
at the ventilating space between the combing and 
hatch, and annoyed me so persistently that I was 
driven to believe there was something worse than 
New Orleans roughs. During this night of tor- 
ture I heard in the distance the sound of oars 
moving in the oar-locks, and paused for an in- 
stant in the battle with the phlebotomists, think- 
ing the " Riddle " might be coming, but all sound 
seemed hushed, and I returned to my dreary 
warfare. 

Not waiting to prepare breakfast the next 
morning, I left the prairie shore, and rowed rap- 
idly towards Point aux Herbes. At the light- 
house landing I found Saddles, with his boat 
drawn up on shore. He had followed me at 
four and a half p. m., and the evening being clear, 
he had easily reached the light-house at eleven 
p. M. on the same night. Mr. Belton, the light- 
keeper, kept bachelor's hall in his quarters, and 
at once went to work with hearty good-w^ill to 
prepare a breakfast for us, to which we did full 
justice. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 219 

At eleven a. m., though a fog shut out all ob- 
jects from our sight, I set a boat compass before 
me on the floor of my craft, and saying good-bye 
to our host, we struck across the lake in a course 
which took us to a point below the " Rigolets," 
a name given to the passages in the marshes 
through which a large portion of the water of 
Lake Pontchartrain flows into the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. The marshes, or low prairies, which con- 
fine the w^aters of Lake Pontchartrain, are ex- 
tensive. The coarse grass grows to four or Ave 
feet in height, and in it coons, wildcats, minks, 
hogs, and even rabbits, find a home. In the 
bayous wild-fowl abound. 

The regfion is a favorite one with hunters and 
fishermen; but during the summer months alli- 
gators and moccasin-snakes are abundant, when 
it behooves one to be wary. Upon some of the 
marshy islands of the Gulf, outside of Lake Pont- 
chartrain, wild hogs are to be found. In 1853 it 
became known that an immense wild boar lived 
upon the Chandeleur Islands. He was frequent- 
ly hunted, and though struck by the balls shot at 
him, escaped uninjured, his tough hide proving 
an impenetrable barrier to all assaults. There 
is always, however, some vulnerable point to be 
found, and in 1874 some Spanish fisherman, tak- 
ing an undue advantage of his boarship, shot him 
in the eye, and then clubbed him to death. 

The Rigolets are at the eastern end of Lake 



2 20 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Pontchartrain. Their northern side skirts the 
main land, while their south side is bounded by 
marshy islands. As we rowed through this 
outlet of the lake, Fort Pike, with its grassy 
banks, arose picturesquely on our right from its 
site on a knoll of high ground. Outside of the 
Rigolets we entered an arm of the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, called Lake Borgne, the shores of which were 
desolate, and formed extensive marshes cut up by 
creeks and bayous into many small islands. 

As it was late in the day, we ran our two boats 
into a bayou near the mouth of the Rigolets, and 
prepared, under the most trying circumstances, to 
rest for the night. The atmosphere was soft and 
mild, the evening was perfect. The great sheet 
of water extended far to the east. On the south 
it was bounded by marshes. A long, low 
prairie coast stretched away on the north; it 
was the southern end of the state of Mississippi. 
The light-houses flashed their bright beacon- 
lights over the water. All was tranquil save the 
ever-pervading, persistent mosquito. Thousands 
of these insects, of the largest size and of the 
most pertinacious character, came out of the high 
grass and "made night hideous." 

We had not provided ourselves with a tent, 
and no artifice on our part could protect us from 
these torments; so, vainly dealing blows right 
and left, we discussed the oft-mooted point of the 
mosquito's usefulness to mankind. We lords of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 221 

creation believe that everything is made for the 
gratification of man, even thinking at one time, in 
our ignorance, that the beautiful colors of flowers 
served no other end, than to gratify the sense 
of sight. But this fancy, made beautiful by the 
songs of our poets, has been dealt with as the 
man of science must ever deal Avith stubborn 
facts, and the utilit}' as well as the beauty of these 
exquisite hues have been discovered. The colors 
in the petals of the flowers attract certain insects, 
whose duty it is to fertilize the flowers by dusting 
the pistils with the pollen of the ripe anthers, some 
being attracted by one color, some by another. 

Flowery thoughts were not, however, in 
keeping with the miserable state of mental 
and physical restlessness induced by the irritat- 
ing mosquito, and its usefulness seemed to be a 
necessary thought to make me patient as I lay 
like a mummy, enveloped in my blankets. The 
coons were fighting and squealing around m}' 
boat, which lay snugly ensconced in a bayou 
among the reeds, for, once under my hatch-cover, 
the presence of man was unheeded by these ani- 
mals, and they sportively turned my deck into a 
species of amphitheatre. 

The vices and virtues of the mosquito may be 
summed up in a few words, always remember- 
ing that it is the female, and not the male, to 
whom humanity is indebted for lessons of pa- 
tience. The female mosquito deposits about 



2 22 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

three hundred eggs, nearly the shape of a grain 
of wheat, arranging and gluing them perpendic- 
ularly side by side, until the whole resembles a 
solid, canoe-like body, which floats about on the 
surface of the water. Press this little boat of 
eggs deep into the water, and its buoyancy causes 
it to rise immediately to the surface, where it 
maintains its true position of a well-ballasted 
craft, right side up. The warmth of the sun, 
tempered with the moisture of the water, soon 
hatches the eggs, and the larva, as wigglers or 
wrigglers, descend to the bottom of the quiet 
pool, and feed upon the decaying vegetable mat- 
ter. It moves actively through the stagnant 
water in its passage to the surface, aerifying it, 
and at the same time doing faithfully its work as 
scavenger by consuming vegetable germs and 
putrefying matter. Professor G. F. Sanborn, 
and other leading American entomologists, assert 
that the mosquito saves from twenty-five to fort}'' 
per cent, in our death-list among those who are 
exposed to malarial influences. 

With malaria, the curse of large districts in 
the United States, sowing its evil seeds broad- 
cast in our land, and daily closing its iron grasp 
upon its victims, who could wish for the ex- 
termination of so useful an insect as the mos- 
quito? 

When the larva reaches the surface of the 
water, it inhales, through a delicate tube at the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 223 

lower end of its body, all the air necessary for its 
respiration. Having lived three or four w^eeks 
in the w^ater, during which time it has entered 
the pupa state, the original skin is cast off, and 
the insect is transformed into a ditferent and more 
perfect state. A few days later the epidermis of 
the pupa falls off, and floats upon the water, and 
upon this light raft the insect dries its body in the 
warm rays of the sun ; its damp and heavy form 
grows lighter and more ethereal; it slowly 
spreads its delicate wings to dry, and soon rises 
into the clear ether a perfected being. 

The male mosquitoes retire to the woods, and 
lead an indolent, harinless life among the flowers 
and damp leaves. They are not provided with 
a lancet, and consequently do not feed upon blood, 
but suck up moisture through the little tubes na- 
ture has given them for that purpose. They are 
a quiet, well-behaved race, and do not even sing; 
both the music and the sting being reserved for 
the other sex. They rarely enter the abodes of 
man, and may be easily identified by their heavy, 
feathery antennae and long maxillary palpi. 

Unfortunately for mankind, the female mos- 
quito possesses a most elaborate instrument of 
torture. She first warns us of her presence by 
the buzzing sound we know so well, and then 
settling upon her victim, thrusts into the quiver- 
ing flesh five sharp organs, one of which is a 
delicate lancet. These organs, taken in one mass, 



2 24 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

are called the beak, or bill of the insect. A 
writer says: "The bill has a blunt fork at the 
end, and is apparently grooved. Working through 
the groove, and projecting from the centre of the 
angle of the fork, is a lance of perfect form, 
sharpened v^ith a fine bevel. Beside it the most 
perfect lance looks like a handsaw. On either 
side of this lance two saws are arranged, with the 
points fine and sharp, and the teeth well-defined 
and keen. The backs of these saws play against 
the lance. When the mosquito alights, with its 
peculiar hum, it thrusts in its keen lance, and then 
enlarges the aperture with the two saws, which 
play beside the lance, until the forked bill, with 
its capillary arrangement for pumping blood, can 
be inserted. The sawing process is what grates 
upon the nerves of the victim, and causes him to 
strike wildly at the sawyer. The irritation of a 
mosquito's bite is undoubtedly owing to these 
saws. It is to be hoped that the mosquito keeps 
her surgical instruments clean, otherwise it might 
be a means of propagating blood diseases." 

While the mosquito is a sort of parasite. Pro- 
fessor Sanborn, the " Consulting Naturalist " of 
Andover, Massachusetts, informs me that he has 
discovered as many as four or five parasitical 
w^orms preying upon the inside tissues of the 
minute beak of the insect. 

When the young female mosquito emerges 
from the water, she lays her eggs in the way de- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 225 

scribed, and her offspring following in time her 
example, several broods are raised in a single 
season. Many of the old ones die off, but a suf- 
ficient number hybernate under the bark of trees 
and in dwelling-houses, to perpetuate the species 
in the early spring months of the following 
year. 

Another insect scavenger, found along the low 
shores of the Gulf, is the blow-fly, and one very 
useful to man. Of one species of this insect the 
distinofuished naturalist Reaumur has asserted 
that the progeny of a single female will consume 
the carcass of a horse in the same time that it 
will require a lion to devour it. This singular 
statement may be explained in the following 
way. The female fly discovers the body of a 
dead horse, and deposits (as one species does) 
her six hundred eggs upon it. In twenty-four 
hours these eggs will hatch, producing about 
three hundred female larva, which feed upon the 
flesh of the horse for about three days, when they 
attain the perfected state of flies. The three hun- 
dred female flies will in their turn deposit some 
hundred and eighty thousand eggs, which become 
in four days an army of devourers, and thus in 
about twelve days, under favorable circumstances, 
the flesh is consumed by the progeny of one pair 
of flies in the same time that a lion would devour 
the carcass. 

Our sleepless night coming at last to an end^ 

IS 



2 26 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

we rowed, at dawn, along the prairie shores of the 
northern coast towards the open Gulf of Mexico. 
Back of the prairies the forests rose like a green 
wall in the distance. A heavy fog settled down 
upon the water and drove us into camp upon the 
prairie, where we endured again the torture caused 
by the myriads of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, and 
were only too glad to make an early start the next 
morning. A steady pull at the oars brought us 
to the end of a long cape in the marshes. About 
a mile and a half east of the land's end we saw a 
marshy island, of three or four acres in extent, 
out of the grass of which arose a small wooden 
light-house, resting securely upon its bed of piles. 
There was a broad gallery around the low tower, 
and seeing the light-keeper seated under the 
shadow of its roof, we pulled out to sea, hoping 
to obtain information from him as to the " lay of 
the land." It was the Light of St. Joseph, and 
here, isolated from their fellow-men, lived Mr. 
H. G. Plunkett and his assistant light-keeper. 

They were completely surrounded by water, 
which at hio^h tide submero^ed their entire is- 
land. Mr. Butler, the assistant light-keeper, was 
absent at the village of Bay St. Louis, on the 
northern shore. The principal keeper begged us 
to wait until he could cook us a dinner, but the 
rising south-east wind threatened a rough sea, 
and warned us to hasten back to the land. The 
keeper, standing on his gallery, pointed out the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 227 

village of Shieldsboro, nine miles distant, on the 
north coast, and we plainly saw its white cottages 
glimmering among the green trees. 

Mr. Plunkett advised us not to return to the 
coast which we had just left, as it would necessi- 
tate following a long contour of the shore to reach 
Shieldsboro, but assured us that we could row 
nine miles in a straight coiirse across the open 
Gulf to the north coast without difficulty. He 
aro^ued that the risino^ wind was a fair one for our 
boats; and that a two hours' strong pull at the 
oars would enable us to reach a good camping- 
place on high ground, while if we took the safer 
but more roundabout route, it w^ould be impossi- 
ble to arrive at the desired port that night, and 
we would again be compelled to camp upon the 
low prairies. We knew w^hat that meant; and 
to escape another sleepless night in the mosquito 
lowland, we were ready to take almost any 
risk. 

Having critically examined our oar-locks, and 
carefully ballasted our boats, we pulled into the 
rough water. The light-keeper shouted encour- 
agingly to us from his high porch, "You'll get 
across all right, and will have a good camp to- 
night! " For a long time we worked carefully 
at our oars, our little shells now rising on the 
high crest of a combing sea, now sinking deep 
into the trough, when one of us could catch only 
a glimpse of his companion's head. As the wind 



2 28 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

increased, and the sea became white with caps, 
it required the greatest care to keep our boats 
from filling. The light-keeper continued to 
watch us through his telescope, fearing his 
counsel had been ill-advised. At times we 
oflanced over our shoulders at the white sand- 
banks and forest-crowned coasts of Shieldsboro 
and Bay St. Louis, which were gradually rising 
to our view, higher and higher above the tide. 
The piers of the summer watering-places, some 
of them one thousand feet in length, ran out 
into shoal water. Against these the waves beat 
in fury, enveloping the abutments in clouds of 
white spray. When within a mile of Shields- 
boro the ominous thundering of the surf, pound- 
ing upon the shelving beach of hard sand, 
warned us of the difficulty to be experienced 
in passing through the breakers to the land. 

It was a very shoal coast, and the sea broke 
in long swashy waves upon it. If we succeeded 
in getting through the deeper surf, we would 
stick fast in six inches of water on the bot- 
tom, and would not be able to get much nearer 
than a quarter of a mile to the dry land. Then, 
if we grounded only for a moment, the break- 
ing waves would wash completely over cur 
boats. 

Having no idea of being wrecked upon the 
shoals, I put the duck-boat's bow, with apron 
set, towards the combing waves, and let her 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 229 

drift in shore stern foremost. The instant the 
heel of the boat touched the bottom, I pulled 
rapidly sea\vard, and in this way felt the ap- 
proaches to land in various channels many times 
without shipping a sea. 

Saddles kept in the offing, in readiness to 
come to my assistance if needed. It became 
evident that we could not land without filling 
our boats A\nth water, so we hauled off to sea, 
and took the trough easterly, until we had passed 
the villages of Shieldsboro and Bay St. Louis, 
when, like a port of refuge, the bay of St. Louis 
opened its wide portals, which we entered with 
alacrity, and were soon snugly camped in a heavy 
grove of oaks and yellow pines. Here we 
found an ample supply of dry wood and fresh 
water, with wild ducks feeding within easy gun- 
shot of our quarters. There were no mosqui- 
toes, and that fact alone rewarded us for our 
exertions and anxieties. 

It was after five o'clock in the afternoon, and, 
sitting over our cheerful camp-fire, we had lit- 
tle thought of the scene being enacted on the 
ground we had just gone over. The light- 
keeper was still at his post, not anxious now 
about our little craft; but, peering through the 
fast gathering gloom, he turned his telescope in 
the direction where he expected to find the boat 
of his assistant. He soon saw a tiny speck, 
which grew more and more distinct each mo- 



230 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ment as it rose and fell upon the waves, beat- 
ing against a head wind, with sails set, and 
coming from Bay St. Louis to St. Joseph's 
Light. It was the boat he expected; and, ad- 
justing his glass, he awaited her arrival. 

The cheery light shot its pellucid rays over 
the dark water, inviting the little sail-boat to a 
safe harbor, while the mariner hopefully wres- 
tled with the wind and sea, thinking it would 
soon be over, and his precious cargo (for his 
wife, her friend, and his three children were on 
board) safely landed upon the island, where 
they could look calmly back upon the perils 
of the deep. 

Bravely the boat breasted the sea. It was 
within three miles of the light, though hardly 
visible in the gloom to the watchful eye of the 
light-keeper on his gallery, when Butler at- 
tempted to go upon another tack. Twice he 
tried, twice he failed, when, making a third at- 
tempt, the booin of the sail jibed, and instantly 
the boat capsized. The disappearance of the 
sail from his horizon told the man upon the 
gallery of the peril of his friends, and quickly 
launching a boat, he proceeded rapidly to the 
scene of disaster. 

He found the two women clinging to the 
boat, and rescued them; but the man and his 
three children were drowned. A week later, 
the body of the assistant keeper with that of his 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 23 1 

oldest child were washed up upon the beach; 
the others were doubtless thrown up on some 
lonely coast and devoured by wild hogs or 
buzzards. 

Four months later, some fishermen, while 
hauling their seine, found the boat imbedded 
in the sand, in about eight feet of water. Thus 
the treacherous sea is ever ready to swallow in 
its insatiable maw those who love it and trust 
to its ever varying moods. 

The gale confined us to our camp for three 
days, during which time we roamed through the 
beautiful ' semi-tropical woods, cooked savory 
meals, and, lying idly near our fire, watched the 
fish leap from the water. While in our retreat. 
Dame Nature favored us with one sharp frost, 
but it was not sufficiently severe to injure vege- 
tation. 

On Monday, January 31, we left the beauti- 
ful bay, and rounding Henderson's Point, pulled 
an easterly course on the open Gulf, along the 
shores of the village of Pass Christian, which, 
like the other summer watering-places of this 
part of the Gulf coast, was made conspicuous 
from the water by the many long light piers, 
built of rough pine poles, which extended, in 
some cases, several hundred feet into the shoal 
water. Upon the end of almost every pier was 
the bath-house of the owner of some cotta^re. 
The bathers descended a ladder placed under 



232 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

the bath-house to the salt water below. The 
area beneath each house was enclosed by slats, 
or poles, nailed to the piling, to secure the 
bathers from the sharks, which are numerous 
in these waters. 

Two of these ferocious creatures were havinof 
a fierce combat, in about four feet depth of water, 
as we rowed off Pass Christian. This coast is des- 
titute of marshes, and has long sandy beaches, with 
heavy pine and oak forests in the background. 
The bathing is excellent, and is appreciated by 
the people of Louisiana and Mississippi, who 
resort here in large numbers during the sum- 
mer months. All the hotels and cottages of 
these sea-girt villages are, however, closed dur- 
ing the winter, just the time of the year when 
the climate is delightful, and shooting and fish= 
ing at their best. 

From Lake Pontchartrain to Mobile Bay, a 
distance of more than one hundred statute miles 
in a straight line, there extends a chain of 
islands, situated from seven to ten miles south 
of the main coast, and known respectively as 
Cat Island, Sloop Island, Horn Island, Petit 
Bois Island, and Dauphine Island. The vast 
watery area between the mainland and these 
islands is known as Mississippi Sound, be- 
cause the southern end of the large state of 
Mississippi forms its principal northern boun- 
dary. The Chandeleur and many other low 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 233 

marshy islands lie to the south of the above- 
named chain. 

Northern yachtmen can pass a pleasant winter 
in these ^vaters. The fishing along the Gulf 
coast is excellent. Not having had an opportu- 
nity to identify their scientific nomenclature, I 
can give only the common names by which many 
species of these fish are known to the native 
fishermen. Among those found are red-fish, 
Spanish mackerel, speckled trout, black trout, 
blue-fish, mullet, sheep's-head, croakers, floun- 
ders, and the aristocratic pompano. Crabs and 
eels are taken round the piers in large numbers, 
w^hile delicious shrimps are captured in nets 
by the bushel, and oysters are daily brought 
in from their natural beds. The fish are kept 
alive in floating wells until the cook is ready 
to receive them. 

Venison is sold in the markets at a very low 
price, while the neighboring gardens supply all 
our summer vegetables during the winter months. 
I thought, while we rowed along this attractive 
coast in the balmy atmosphere, with everything 
brightened and beautified by the early moon, 
how many were suffering in our northern cities 
from various forms of pulmonary troubles in- 
duced by the severe winter weather, while here, 
in a delightful climate, with everything to make 
man comfortable, private houses and hotels were 
closed, and the life-giving air blowing upon the 



234 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

sandy coast, from the open Gulf of Mexico, dy- 
ing softly away unheeded by those who so much 
needed its healing influences. This region, 
being entirely free from the dampness of the 
inland rivers of Florida, and having excellent 
communication by rail with the North and New 
Orleans, offers every advantage as a winter re- 
sort, and will doubtless become popular in that 
way as its merits are better known. 

About nine o'clock in the evening we passed 
the Biloxi light-house, and decided, as the night 
was serene and the waters of the Gulf tranquil, 
to run under one of the bath-houses, and there 
enjoy our rest, not caring to enter a strange vil- 
lage at that hour. The piling of some of the piers 
was destitute of the usual shark barricade, and 
selecting two of these inviting retreats, we pushed 
in our boats, moored them to the piles, and were 
soon fast asleep. 

About daybreak the weather changed, and the 
sea came rolling in, pitching us about in the 
narrow enclosure in a fearful manner. The 
water had risen so high that w^e could not get 
out of our pens; so, climbing into the bath- 
rooms above, we held on to the bow and stern 
lines of our boats, endeavoring to keep them 
from being dashed to pieces against the pilings 
of the pier. While in this mortifying predica- 
ment, expecting each moment to see our faith- 
ful little skifls wrecked most ingloriously in a 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 235 

bath-house, sounds were heard and some men 
appeared, who, coming to our assistance, proved 
themselves friends in need. We fished the boats 
out of the pen with my watch-tackle, and hoisted 
each one at a time into the bath-house that had 
covered it. 

Two gentlemen then approached, one claim- 
ing Saddles as his guest, while the other, Mr. 
J. P. Montross, conducted me to his attractive 
tree-embowered home; and with the soft and 
winning accent of an educated gentleman of 
Yucatan, the country of his birth, placed hi^s 
house and belongings at my disposal. "I was 
in New Orleans when you went through that 
city," he said, "and learning that you would 
pass through Biloxi, I at once telegraphed to 
m}^ agent here to detain you if possible as my 
guest until I should arrive." 

We remained a week in Biloxi, where I be- 
came daily more and more impressed with the 
great natural advantages of these Gulf towns as 
winter watering-places for northern invalids or 
sportsmen. During one of my rambles about 
Biloxi, I stumbled upon a curious little planta- 
tion, the lessee of which was entirely absorbed 
in the occupation of raising water-cresses. In 
Mr. Scheffer's garden, which was about half an 
acre in extent, I found fifteen little springs flow- 
ing out of a substratum of chalk. The water 
was very warm and clear, while the springs 



236 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

varied in character. There was a chalk-spring, 
a sulphur-spring, and an iron-spring, all within 
a few feet of each other. The main spring 
flowed out of the ground near the head, or 
highest part of the garden, while ditches of 
about two feet in width, w^ith boarded sides to 
prevent their caving in, carried the water of the 
various springs to where it was needed. 

The depth of water in these ditches was not 
over eighteen inches. Their preparation is very 
simple, sand to the depth of an inch or two being 
placed at the bottom, and the roots, cuttings, &c., 
of the cresses dropped into them. This prolific 
plant begins at once to multiply, sending up 
thousands of hair-like shoots, with green leaves 
floating upon the surface of the running water. 
Mr. Scheffer informed me that he marketed his 
stock three times a week, cutting above water 
the matured plants, and putting them into bun- 
dles, or bunches, of about six inches in diame- 
ter, and then packing them with the tops down- 
ward in barrels and baskets. These bunches 
of cresses sell for fifteen cents apiece on the 
ground where they are grown. New Orleans 
consumes most of the stock; but invalids in va- 
rious places are fast becoming customers, as the 
virtues of this plant are better understood. It is 
of great benefit in all diseases of the liver, in 
pulmonary complaints, and in dyspepsia with its 
thousand ills. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 237 

The ditches in this little half-acre garden, 
if placed in a continuous line, ^vould reach 
six hundred feet, and the crop increases so fast 
that one hundred bunches a week can be cut 
throughout the year. The hot suns of summer 
injure the tender cresses; hence butter-beans are 
planted along the ditches to shade them. The 
bean soon covers the light trellis which is 
built for it to run upon, and forms an airy 
screen for the tender plants. During the au- 
tumn and winter months the light frame-work 
is removed, and sunlight freely admitted. 

Cresses can be grown with little trouble in 
pure water of the proper temperature; and as 
each bed is replanted but once a year, in the 
month of October, the yield is large and prof- 
itable. 

The intelligent cultivator of this water-cress 
garden frequently has boarders from a distance, 
who reside with him that they may receive the 
full benefit of a diet of tender cresses fresh 
from the running water. Few, indeed, know 
the benefit to be derived from such a diet, or 
the water-cress garden would not be such a nov- 
elty to Americans. We, as a nation, take fewer 
salads with our meals than the people of any of 
the older sister-lands, perhaps, because in the 
rush of every-day life we have not time to eat 
them. We are, at the same time, adding largely 
each year to the list of confirmed dyspeptics, 



238 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

many of whom might be saved from this worst 
of all ills by a persistent use of the fresh Avater- 
cress, crisp lettuce, and other green and whole- 
some articles of food. Such advice is, however, 
of little use, since many would say, like a gen- 
tleman I once met, " Why, I would rather die 
than diet!" Three hundred feet from the gar- 
den the water of its springs flows into the Gulf 
of Mexico, the waves of which beat against the 
clean sandy shore. 

Among other things in this interesting town, 
I discovered in the boat-house belonging to the 
summer residence of Mr. C. T. Howard, of 
New Orleans, John C Cloud's little boat, the 
^^ yennieP Strange emotions filled my mind 
as I gazed upon the light Delaware River skiff 
which had been the home for so many days 
of that unfortunate actor, whose disastrous end 
I have already related to my reader. 

The boat had been brought from Plaquemine 
Plantation on the Mississippi River to this dis- 
tant point. It was about fifteen feet in length, 
and four feet wide amidships. She was sharp 
at both bow and stern, and was almost desti- 
tute of sheer. There was a little deck at each 
end, and the usual galvanized-iron oar-locks, 
without out-riggers, while upon her quarters 
were painted very small national flags. She 
was built of white pine, and was very light. 

Each summer, when guests are at Biloxi, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 239 

sympathizing groups crowd round this little 
skiff, and listen to the oft-repeated story of the 
poor northerner who sacrificed his own life 
while engaged in the attempt to win a bet to 
support his large and destitute familyo 

Here by the restless sea, which seems ever 
to be moaning a requiem for the dead, I left 
the little ''Jennie," a monument of Ameri- 
can pluck, but, at the same time, a mortifying 
instance of the fruitlessness of our national 
spirit of adventure when there is no principle 
to back it. 





^Arrival at the jSulf of yVlEXico. — pAMP yVlosc^uiTO. 



240 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 




CHAPTER X. 

FROM BILOXI TO CAPE SAN BLAS. 

POINTS ON THE GULF COAST. — MOBILE BAY. — THE HERMIT OF 
DAUPHINE ISLAND. — BON SECOURS BAY. — A CRACKER'S 
DAUGHTERS. — THE PORTAGE TO THE PERDIDO. — THE PORT- 
AGE FROM THE PERDIDO TO BIG LAGOON. — PENSACOLA BAY. 

— SANTA ROSA SOUND. — ■ A NEW LONDON FISHERMAN. — CATCH- 
ING THE POMPANO. — A NEGRO PREACHER AND WHITE SINNERS. 

— A DAY AND A NIGHT WITH A MURDERER. — ST. ANDREW'S 
SOUND. — ARRIVAL AT CAPE SAN BLAS. 

|N the morning of February 8 we left Biloxi, 
and launching our boats, proceeded on our 
voyage to the eastward, skirting shores which 
were at times marshy, and again firm and sandy. 
At Oak Point, and Belle Fontaine Point, green 
magnolia trees, magnificent oaks, and large pines 
grew nearly to the water's edge. Beyond Belle 
Fontaine the waters of Graveline Bayou flow 
through a marshy flat to the sea, and offer an 
attractive territory to sportsmen in search of 
w41d-fowl. Beyond the bayou, between West 
and East Pascagoula, we found a delta of marshy 
islands, and an area of mud flats, upon which 
had been erected enclosures of brush, within the 
cover of which the sportsman could secrete him- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 24 1 

self and boat while he watched for the wild ducks 
constantly attracted to his neighborhood by the 
submarine grasses upon which they fed. 

At sunset we ran into the mouth of a creek 
near the village of East Pascagoula, and there 
slept in our boats, which were securely tied to 
stakes driven into the salt marsh. At eight 
o'clock the next morning, the tide being low, we 
waded out of the stream, towing our boats with 
lines into deeper water, and rowed past East 
Pascagoula, v/hich, like the other watering-places 
of the Gulf, seemed deserted in the winter. The 
coast was now a wilderness, with few habitations 
in the dense forests, which formed a massive dark 
green background to the wide and inhospitable 
marshes. As we proceeded upon our voyage wild- 
fowl and fish became more and more abundant, 
but few fishermen's boats or coasting vessels were 
seen upon the smooth waters of the Gulf About 
dusk we ascended a creek, marked upon our chart 
as Bayou Caden, and passing through marshes, 
over "which swarmed myriads of mosquitoes, we 
landed upon the pebbly beach of a little ham- 
mock, and there pitched our tent. 

This portable shelter, which we had made at 
Biloxi, proved indeed a luxury. It was only six 
feet square at its base, weighing but a few pounds, 
and when compactly folded occupying little space; 
but after the first night's peaceful sleep under its 
sheltering care it occupied a large place in our 
16 



242 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

hearts; for, having driven out the mosquitoes and 
closely fastened the entrance, we bade defiance 
to our tormentors, and realized by comparison, 
as we never did before, the misery of voyaging 
without a tent. 

Moving out of the Bayou Caden the next day, 
a lot of fine 03^sters was collected in shoal water, 
and by a lucky shot, a fat duck was added to the 
menu. 

We were now on the coast of Alabama, so 
named by an aboriginal chief when he arrived at 
the river, from which he thought no white man 
would ever drive him, and turning to his follow- 
ers, exclaimed, Aladama! — "Here we rest." 
Alas for chief and followers, who to-day have 
no spot of ground where they can stand and 
cry, Alabama! 

There were several bays to be crossed before 
we reached a point in the marshes which ex- 
tended several miles to the south, and was called 
Berrin Point. To the east of this was a wide 
bay, bounded by Cedar Point, which formed one 
side of the entrance to Mobile Bay. Miles across 
the water to the south lay Dauphine Island, which 
it was necessary to reach before we could cross 
the inlet to Mobile Bay. The wind rose from the 
south, giving us a head sea, but we pulled across 
the shallow bay, through which ran a channel 
called " Grant's Pass," it having been dredged 
out to enable vessels to pass from Mississippi 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 243 

Sound to Mobile Bay. This tedious pull ended 
by our safe arrival at Dauphine Island, upon the 
eastern point of which we found, close to the 
beach, a group of wooden government buildings, 
once occupied by some of the members of the 
United States Army Engineer Corps. 

Here lived, as keeper of the property, a genial 
recluse, Mr. Robinson Cruse, who for eight 
years had led an almost solitary life, his nearest 
neighbor on the island being the sergeant in 
charge of Fort Gaines, w^hich officer, I was in- 
formed, was seldom seen outside of his dismal 
enclosure. Solitude, however, did not seem to 
have had the usual effect upon Mr. Cruse, for he 
welcomed us most cordially, and cooked us a 
truly maritime supper of many things he had taken 
from the sea. When darkness came, and the 
winds were howling about us, he piled in his 
open fireplace pieces of the wrecks of unfortu- 
nate vessels which had foundered on the coast, 
and had cast up their frames and plankings on 
the beach near his door. Grouping ourselves 
round the crackling fire, our host opened his 
budget of adventures by sea and by land, enter- 
taining us most delightfully until midnight, when 
we spread our blankets on the hard floor in front 
of the fire, and were soon travelling in the realms 
of dreamland. 

The following day the wind stirred up the 
wide expanse of water about the island to such 



244 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

a decjree of boisterousness that we could not 
launch our boats. Our position was somewhat 
peculiar. Between Dauphine Island and the 
beach of the mainland opposite was an open 
ocean inlet of three and a half miles in width, 
through which the tide flowed. Fort Gaines 
commanded the "western side of this inlet, while 
Fort Morgan menaced the intruder on the oppo- 
site shore. North of this Gulf portal was the 
wide area of w^ater of Mobile Bay, extending 
thirty miles to Mobile City, while to the south 
of it spread the Gulf of Mexico, bounded only by 
the dim horizon of the heavens. To the east, 
and inside the narrow beach territory of the east- 
ern side of the inlet, was Bon Secours Bay, a 
sort of estuary of Mobile Bay, of sixteen miles in 
length. The passage of the exposed inlet could 
be made in a small boat only during calm 
weather, otherwise the voyager might be blown 
out to sea, or be forced, at random, into the great 
sound inside the inlet. In either case the rough 
waves would be likely to fill the craft and drown 
its occupant. In case of accident the best swim- 
mer w^ould have little chance of escape in these 
semi-tropical waters, as the man-eating shark is 
always cruising about, waiting, Micawber-like, 
for something " to turn up." 

The windy weather kept us prisoners on Dau- 
phine Island for two days, but early on the morn- 
ing of February 13 a calm prevailed, taking 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 245 

advantage of which, we hurried across the open 
expanse of water, not daring to linger until our 
kind host could prepare breakfast. The shoal 
water of the approaches to the enterprising 
cotton port of Mobile make it necessary for 
large vessels to anchor thirty miles below the 
city, in a most exposed position. We passed 
through this fleet, which w^as discharging its 
cargo by lighters, and gained in safety the beach 
in Bon Secours Bay, near Fort Morgan. 

While preparing our breakfast on the glittering 
white strand, we received a visit from Mr. B. F. 
Midyett, the light-keeper of Mobile Point. He 
was a North Carolinian, but told us that Indian 
blood flowed in his veins. He was from the 
neighborhood of the lost colony of Sir Walter 
Raleigh, a history of which I gave in my " Voy- 
age of the Paper Canoe." Midyett (also spelled 
Midget) may have been a descendant of that 
feeble colony of white men which so mysteri- 
ously disappeared from history after it had aban- 
doned Roanoke Island, North Carolina, being 
forced by starvation to take refuge among 
friendly Indians, when its members, through 
intermarriage with their protectors, lost their in- 
dividuality as white men, and founded a race of 
blue-eyed savages afterwards seen by European 
explorers in the forests of Albemarle and Pamp- 
lico sounds. 

The light-keeper begged us to make him a 



246 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

visit; but it was necessary to hurry to the end 
of Bon Secours Bay before night, as a north 
wind would give us a heavy beam sea. Pass- 
ing "Pilot Town," where the little cottages of 
oystermen, fishermen, and pilots were clustered 
along the beach, we pulled past a forest-clad 
strand until dusk, when we reached the end of 
Bon Secours Bay, where it w^as necessary to 
make a portage across the woods to the next 
inland watercourse. 

The eastern end of Bon Secours Bay termi- 
nated at the mouth of Bon Secours River, which 
we ascended, finding on the low shores a well- 
stocked country store, and several small houses 
occupied by oystermen. We slept in our boats 
by the river's bank, and the next morning turned 
into a narrow creek, on our right hand, which 
led to a small tidal pond, called Bayou John, the 
bottom of which was covered in places with 
large and delicious oysters. Crossing the lagoon, 
we landed in a heavy forest of yellow pines. 
This desolate region was the home of John 
Childeers, a farmer; and we were informed 
that he alone, in the entire neighborhood, was 
the possessor of oxen, and was in fact the only 
man who could be hired to draw our boats 
seven miles to Portage Creek, which is a trib- 
utary of Perdido River. 

Leaving Saddles to watch our boats, I en- 
tered the tall pine forest, and after walking a 



- *«•,* 



K 



*^,h 






o 

J. 

n 
tr 

o 

-J 



S H^ 



^^ 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 247 

mile came upon the clearing of the backwoods- 
man. His two daughters, young women, were 
working in the field; but the sight of a stranger 
was so unusual to them, that, heedless of my 
remonstrances and gentle assurances of good- 
will, thev took to their heels and ran so fast 
that it was impossible to overtake them until 
they arrived at the log cabin of their father. 
The doo;s then made a most unceremonious 
assault upon me, when the maidens, forgetting 
their fears, made a sally upon the fierce curs, 
and clubbed them with such hearty good-will 
that the discomfited canines hastily took refuge 
in the woods. 

The family listened to my story, and insisted 
upon mv joining them in their mid-day meal, 
which consisted of pork, sweet-potatoes, and 
corn-bread. My host agreed to haul the boats 
the next day to Portage Creek for five dollars, 
and I returned to Saddles to make preparations 
for the overland journey. That night we feasted 
sumptuously upon fat oysters six inches in length, 
rolled in beaten eggs and cracker-crumbs, and 
fried a delicate brown. These, with good hot 
coffee and fresh bread, furnished a supper highly 
appreciated by two hungry men. 

With the morning came our farmer, when 
about an hour was spent in securely packing 
our boats in the Ions;; wasron. The duck-boat 
was placed upon the bottom, while the light 



248 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

skiff of my companion rested upon a scaffold- 
ing above, made by lashing cross-bars to the 
stanchions of the wagon. This peculiar two- 
storied vehicle swa3'ed from side to side as we 
travelled over uneven ground, but the boats 
were securely lashed in their places, and the 
parts exposed to chafing carefully protected by 
bundles of coarse grass and our blankets. 

We travelled slowly through the heavily 
grassed savannas and the dense forests of yel- 
low pine towards the east, in a line parallel 
with, and only three miles from, the coast. The 
four oxen hauled this light load at a snail's pace, 
so it was almost noon when we struck Portao^e 
Creek near its source, where it was only two 
feet in width. Following along its bank for a 
mile, we arrived at the logging-camp of Mr. 
Childeers. There we found the creek four rods 
in width, and possessing a depth of fifteen feet 
of w^ater. The lumbermen haul their pine logs 
to this point, and float them down the stream to 
the steam sawmills on Perdido River. 

The boats were soon launched upon the dark 
cypress waters of the creek, the cargo carefully 
stowed, and the voyage resumed. Though the 
roundabout course through the woods was fully 
seven miles, a direct line for a canal to con- 
nect the Bon Secours and Portaofe Creek waters 
would not exceed four miles. About two miles 
from the logging-camp the stream entered " Bay 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 249 

Lalanch," from the grassy banks of which alli- 
gators slid into the water as we rowed quietly 

along. 

We now entered a w^ide expanse of bay and 
river, with shores clothed with solemn forests 
of dark green. The wide Perdido River, rising 
in this region of dismal pines, flows between 
Bear Point and inerarity's Point, when, making 
a sharp turn to the eastward, it empties into the 
Gulf of Mexico. In crossing the river between 
the two points mentioned, w^e were only sepa- 
rated from the sea by a narrow strip of low land. 
The Perdido River is the boundary line between 
the states of Alabama and Florida. In a bend 
of the river, nearly three miles east of Inerarity's 
Point, we landed on a low shore, having passed 
the log cabins of several settlers scattered along 
in the woods. 

It was now necessary to make a portage 
across the low country to the next interior 
watercourse, called '' Big Lagoon." It was a 
shallow tidal sheet of water seven miles in 
length by one in width, and separated from the 
sea by a very narrow strip of beach. We 
camped in our boats for the night, starting ofl' 
hopefully in the morning for the little settle- 
ment, to procure a team to haul our boats 
three-quarters of a mile to Big Lagoon. The 
settlers were all absent from their homes, hunt- 
ino' and fishino^, so we returned to our camp 



250 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

depressed in spirits. There was nothing left for 
us but to attempt to haul our boats over the 
sandy neck of land; so we at once applied our- 
selves to the task. The boats were too heavy 
for us to cany, so we dragged the sneak-box 
on rollers, cut from a green pine-tree, half-way 
to the lagoon; and, making many journeys, the 
provisions, blankets, gun, oars, &c., were trans- 
ported upon our shoulders to the half-way rest- 
ing-place. 

So laborious was this portage that when night 
came upon us we had hauled one boat only, 
wnth our provisions, tent, and outfit, to the beach 
of Big Lagoon. The Riddle still rested upon 
the banks of the Perdido River. The tent was 
pitched to shelter us from mosquitoes, and par- 
taking of a hearty supper, we rolled ourselves 
in our blankets and slept. The camp was in 
a desolate place, our only neighbors being the 
coons, and they enlivened the solitude by their 
snarling and fighting, having come down to the 
beach to fish in apparently no amiable mood. 

Before midnight, that unmistakable cry so hu- 
man in its agonizing tone, warned us of the 
approach of a panther. Coming closer and 
closer, the aniinal prowled round our tent, 
sounding his childlike w^ail. It was too dark 
to get a gliinpse of him, though we watched, 
weapons in hand, for his nearer approach. 
Saddles had hunted the beast in his Louisiana 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 25 1 

lairs, and was eager to make him feel the 
weight of his lead. We succeeded in driving 
him off once, but he returned and skulked in 
the bushes near our camp for half an hour, 
when his cries grew fainter as he beat a retreat 
into the forest. 

We worked hard until noon the next day in 
the vain attempt to haul the Riddle from the 
Perdido, when I launched the duck-boat on Big 
Lagoon and rowed easterly in search of assist- 
ance, leaving Saddles behind to guard our stores. 
When six miles from camp, I discovered upon 
the high north shore of the lagoon the clearing 
and cabin of Rev. Charles Hart, an industrious 
negro preacher, who labored assiduously, culti- 
vating the thin sandy soil of his little farm, that 
he might teach his fellow-freedmen spiritual 
truths on the Lord's day. This humble black 
promised to go with his scrawny horse to the 
assistance of Saddles, and at once departed on 
his mission, happy in the knowledge that he 
could serve two unfortunate boatmen, and hon- 
estly earn two dollars. Going into camp upon 
the shore, I kept up a bright lire to notify my 
absent companion of my whereabouts. 

At seven o'clock the Rev. Mr. Hart returned 
and claimed his fee, reporting that he had hauled 
the Riddle to the lagoon, where he found Sad- 
dles pleasantly whiling away the hours of soli- 
tude in the useful occupation of washing his 



252 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

extra shirt and stockings. He assured me the 
Riddle would soon appear. A little later Sad- 
dles reached my camp, and we tented for the 
night on the beach. At daylight we took to 
our oars, and rowed out of the end of the la- 
goon into Pensacola Bay. Skirting the high 
shores on our left, we approached within a mile 
of the United States naval station Warrington, 
where we went into camp upon the white strand, 
in a small settlement of pilots and fishermen, who 
kindly welcomed us to Pensacola Bay. We 
slept in our boats on the sandy beach, beside 
a little stream of fresh water that flowed out of 
the bank. 

The morning of the 19th of February was 
calm and beautiful, w^hile the songs of mocking- 
birds filled the air. Across the inlet of Pensa- 
cola Bay was the western end of the low, sandy 
island of Santa Rosa, which stretches in an east- 
erly direction for forty-eight miles to East Pass 
and Choctawhatchee Bay, and serves as a bar- 
rier to the sea. Behind this narrow beach island 
flow the waters of Santa Rosa Sound, the north- 
ern shores of which are covered with the same 
desolate forests of yellow pine that characterize 
the uplands of the Gulf coast. At the west end 
of Santa Rosa Island the walls of Fort Pickens 
rose gloomily out of the sands. It was the only 
structure inhabited by man on the long barren 
island, with the exception of one small cabin 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 253 

built on the site of Clapp's steam-mill, four miles 
beyond the fort, and occupied by a negro. 

We crossed the bay to Fort Pickens, and fol- 
lowed the island shore of the sound until five 
o'clock p. M., when we sought a camp on the 
beach at the foot of some conspicuous sand hills, 
the thick " scrub " of which seemed to be the 
abode of numerous coons. From the top of the 
principal sand dune there was a fine view of the 
boundless sea. Our position, however, had its 
inconveniences, the principal one being a scar- 
city of water, so we were obliged to break camp 
at an early hour the next day. 

The Santa Rosa Island shore was so desolate 
and unattractive that w^e left it, and crossed the 
narrow sound to the north shore of the mainland, 
where nature had been more prodigal in her dra- 
pery of foliage. Before noon a sail appeared on 
the horizon, and we gradually approached it. 
Close to the shore we saw a raft of sawed tim- 
bers being towed by a yacht. The captain hailed 
us, and we were soon alongside his vessel. The 
refined features of a gentleman beamed upon us 
from under an old straw hat, as its owner trod, 
barefooted, the deck of his craft. He had start- 
ed, with the raft in tow, from his mill at the 
head of Choctawhatchee Bay, bound for the 
great lumber port of Pensacola, but being several 
times becalmed, was now out of provisions. 
We gave him and his men all we could spare 



254 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

from our store, and then inquired whether it 
would be possible for us to find a team and 
driver to haul our boats from the end of the 
watercourse we were then traversing, across the 
woods to the tributary waters of St. Andrew's 
Bay. The captain kindly urged us to go to his 
home, and report ourselves to his wife, remain- 
ing as his guests until he should return from 
Pensacola, — "when," he said, "I myself will 
take you across." 

This plan would, however, have caused a delay 
of several days, so we could not take advantage 
of the kind offer of the ex-confederate general. 

Having considered a moment, our new friend 
proposed another arrangement. 

"There is," he said, "only one person living 
at the end of Choctawhatchee Bay, besides my- 
self, who owns a yoke of oxen. He can serve 
you if he wishes, but remember he is a dangerous 
man. He came here from the state of Missis- 
sippi, after the war, and by exaction, brutality, 
and even worse means, has got hold of most of 
the cattle, and everything else of value, in his 
neighborhood. He can haul your boats to West 
Bay Creek in less than a day's time. The job is 
worth three or four dollars, but he will get all he 
can out of you." 

Thanking the captain for the information, and 
the warning he had given us, we waved a farewell, 
and rowed along the almost uninhabited coast 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 255 

until dusk, when we crossed the sound to camp 
upon Santa Rosa Island, as an old fisherman at 
Warrington had advised us; " for," said he, " the 
woods on the mainland are filled with varmints, 
— cats and painters, — which may bother you 

at night." 

On the morning of the 21st we rowed to the 
end of the sound, which narrowed as we ap- 
proached the entrance to the next sheet of water, 
Choctawhatchee Bay. There were a few shan- 
ties along the narrow outlet on the main shore, 
where some settlers, beguiled to this desolate 
region by the sentimental idea of pioneer- life in 
a fine climate, known as "Florida Fever," 
were starving on a fish diet, which, in the cracker 
dialect, was "powerful handy," and bravely re- 
sisting the attacks of insects, the bane of life in 
Florida. 

Seven miles from the end of Santa Rosa Island 
the boats emerged from the passage between the 
sounds, and entered Choctawhatchee Bay. As 
the wind arose we struggled in rough water, 
shaping our course down to the inlet called East 
Pass, through which the tide ebbed and flowed 
into the bay. 

Here we encountered an original character 
known as " Captain Len Destin." He was a 
fisherman, from New London, Connecticut, and 
had a comforthble house on the high bank ot the 
inlet, surrounded by cultivated fields, where he 



256 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

had lived since 1852. Having married a native of 
the country, he settled down to the occupation 
of his fathers; and being a prince among fisher- 
men, he was able to send good supplies of the 
best fish to the Pensacola markets. His modus 
operandi was rather peculiar. Having rowed 
along the beach on the open Gulf, a boat-load of 
fishermen, with their nets ready to cast, rested 
quietly upon their oars in the offing, while a 
sharp-eyed man walked along the coast, peering 
into the transparent water, searching for the 
schools of fish which feed near the strand. The 
fishermen cautiously follow him, until, suddenly 
catching sight of a lot of pompanos, sheep's-heads, 
and other fish, he signals to his companions, and 
they, quietly approaching the unsuspicious fish, 
drop their long net into the water, and enclose 
the whole school. Drawing the net upon the 
beach, the fish were taken out and carried to 
Captain Len's landing, inside of the inlet, where 
they were packed in the refrigerator of a fleet- 
sailing boat, which, upon receiving its cargo, 
started immediately for Pensacola. In this way 
the pompano, the most delicious of southern 
fishes, being repacked at Pensacola in hogsheads 
of ice, found its way quickly by rail to New 
York city, where they were justly appreciated. 

Captain Len generously supplied our camp 
with fish; so making a good fire, we broiled 
them before it, baking bread in our Dutch oven; 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 257 

and finishing our sumptuous repast with some 
hot coffee, we turned a deaf ear to the whistling 
wind that blew steadily fi-om the north-east. A 
little schooner of four tons was riding out the 
o-ale near the landing. She was bound for Appa- 
fachicola and St. Marks, Florida. Her passen- 
gers were crowded into a cabin, the confined 
limits of which would have attracted the attention 
of any society for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals, had it contained a freight of quadrupeds 
instead of human beings. The heads of white 
and black men and women could be seen above 
the hatchway at times, as though seeking for a 
breath of pure air. 

The Reverend Mr. B., a colored preacher, 
crawled out of the hold, and visited my camp. 
Finding that I sympathized strongly with his 
unfortunate race, he opened his heart to me, 
telling of his labors among them. He also 
gave me an account of his efforts to encourage 
some observance of the first day of the week 
among the white inhabitants of Key West; he 
and other colored Christians having petitioned 
the mayor of that city to enforce the laws which 
require a decent respect for the Lord's day. He 
grieved over the sinful condition of the inhabi- 
tants of that ungodly city, and gave me a sketch 
of his plans for improving the morality of his 
white brethren. He had been travelling, like 
St. Paul, upon the sea, to visit and encourage the 
17 



258 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

weak neo^ro churches in Florida. His address 

CD 

was that of a gentleman, and his heart beat with 
generous impulses. 

I rowed out to the little craft in the offing, and 
found in the diminutive cabin eight first-class 
NEGRO passengers, while in the vessel's hold, 
reclining upon the cargo, were four white men 
who were voyaging second class. The cordage 
of the little craft was rotten, and the sails nearly 
worn out, yet all these people were cheerful, and 
willing to put to sea as soon as the young skip- 
per would dare to venture out upon the Gulf. 

The gale finall}^ exhausted itself. On the 24th 
we rowed along the southern wooded shore of 
Choctawhatchee Bay, towards its eastern end. 
The sound is put down on our charts as Santa 
Rosa Bay, though the people know it only by its 
Indian name. It is nearly thirty miles long, and 
has an average width of five miles. Its shores 
are covered by a wilderness, and the settlements 
are few and far between. As we had not left 
Captain Len's landing until afternoon, we made 
only ten miles that night, and camped, supper- 
less, on "Twelve Mile Point," but making an 
early start the next morning, we reached at noon 
the eastern shore of the bay near the log cabin 
of the man of murderous deeds, to whom we were 
to look for assistance in the transportation of our 
boats across the wilderness to the next inland 
watercourse. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 259 

A tall man, with a most sinister countenance, 
but rather better dressed than the average back- 
woodsman, soon made his way to our boats. I 
plainly stated my object in calling upon him, and 
expressed a wish that he would not be severe in 
his charges, as in that case I should return to 
Captain Len's landing, put to sea, and follow the 
coast instead of the interior waters to the inlet 
of St. Andrew's Bay. He agreed to make the 
portage for ten dollars, stating that the distance 
was about fourteen miles; and we in our turn 
promised to be ready to attend to the loading of 
the boats the next morning. 

As we walked about the plantation, its owner 
became quite communicative, even pointing out 
the spot where his wife's nephew had been shot 
dead, leaving him heir to five hundred head of 
cattle. He spoke of his differences with his 
neighbors, and assured us that nothing but lynch 
law would " go down " in their wild region, 
where, he said, no law existed. He had been a 
physician in his native state of Mississippi, but 
there were so many widows and orphans who 
could not pay his fees that he gave up his pro- 
fession, and came to the Gulf coast of Florida, 
where he met a widow, who owned, with her 
nephew, one thousand head of cattle, which 
roamed through the savanna bottoms of the 
coast, requiring no care except an occasional 
salting. Having married the innocent woman, 



260 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

his first victim, he then, according to the testi- 
mony of his neighbors, hired a man to shoot his 
nephew, and had so become the sole owner of 
the whole ,herd of cattle, which roamed over 
thirty square miles of territory. 

Here was, indeed, a cheerful guide for two 
lone voyagers through the uninhabited wilds! 
Saddles and I made up our minds, however, to 
accept the inevitable gracefully, and at nine 
o'clock the next morning the boats were lashed 
into the wagon, and the retired physician, with 
two of his men on horseback, accompanied by 
Saddles and myself on foot, slowly left the clear- 
ing, and defiled along an almost undefined trail 
through the forest. I noticed that the men were 
well armed, and all on the alert. Occasionally 
one of the men would be sent off to the right or 
left to search for cattle signs, but our guide him- 
self hung close to the wagon, seeming to consider 
prudence the better part of valor. 

Opening the conversation with this quondam 
physician, I asked his opinion in regard to several 
well-known remedies, and discovered that he 
used but three. The best medicine, he said, was 
CALOMEL, the next quinine, and what they 
would not cure, Glauber's salts would. In 
fact, he considered salts the specific for all dis- 
eases. Leading gently to the subject, I spoke 
of his nephew's death, when he assured me the 
cruel deed had been done by a settler named 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 26 1 

Bridekirk, who had squatted upon some land 
belonging to the young man, and though the 
intruder never had it conveyed to him by gov- 
ernment, he considered it his own. Anxious to 
protect his nephew's interest, the physician took 
up the claim, and moved his family to the dis- 
puted territory. " Bridekirk," he said, "swore my 
nephew should never live on what he called his 
claim, and a short time afterwards took his re- 
venge. I had sent the boy for a spur I left at a 
neighbor's, and when just outside my fence a 
man who was concealed in a thicket shot the 
poor fellow. I know it was the devil Bridekirk 
who did it." 

"Did you find his trail? " I asked. 

"No," he answered; "we could not pick it up. 
It was all stamped out. No one could recognize 
it, but I know Bridekirk was the assassin. He 
threatened my life too; bttt lies dead nowP 

"Dead!" I exclaimed; "when did he die?" 

" Oh, about a week ago. He lived a few miles 
from here, and one morning somebody shot him 
in his doorway." 

"Who could have done that?" I inquired. 

A savage gleam lit up the physician's eye, as 
he said, slowly: 

" My wife's nephew had some relation in a 
distant state, and it was reported they would see 
that Bridekirk got his deserts." 

" They came a long way to take their revenge," 
I remarked. 



262 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

"Yes, a very long way," he answered; and 
then added: " This Bridekirk would have been 
arrested for stealing m}^ cattle if he had lived a 
week or two lons^er. Me and a neio^hbor was 
out looking up our cattle round here, not long 
ago, and we saw there were a good many fresh 
burns in the woods, and as we knew that cattle 
would go to such places to nibble the fresh grass 
that starts up after a fire, we set out for a big 
burnt patch. While we were in the woods, to- 
wards sunset, we saw two men on horseback driv- 
ing an old bell-steer and four or five young cattle, 
all of which w^e easily recognized in the distance 
as part of my herd. We followed the men cau- 
tiously, keeping so far in the woods that they 
could not see us, when they mounted a little hill, 
and the last rays of the setting sun striking upon 
them, we saw that it was Bridekirk and a neigh- 
bor who were stealing my stock. We hid in 
the swamp until nine o'clock at night, and 
then rode to Bridekirk's clearing. There was a 
stream in a hollow below his house, but his cat- 
tle-pen was on the rising ground a little way off. 
We tied our horses in the woods, and crawled 
up to the cow-pen. There we found all the 
cattle the thieves had stolen excepting the bell- 
steer. There was a fire down in the hollow by 
the stream, and we could see Bridekirk and the 
other fellow skinning my bell-steer, which they 
had just killed. Said I to my friend, ^ Now we 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 263 

have 'em! ' and I took aim at Bridekirk with my 
gun. My friend was a law man, so he said, 
^No, don't shoot; there is sofne law left, and we 
have EVIDENCE now. Let's go and indict them. 
Then if the sheriff won't arrest them, we can find 
plenty of chances to pull the trigger on them. I 
go in for latv first, and lynching afterwards.' 
Well, it was a hard thing to lose such a chance 
when wx were boiling over, but I put my gun on 
my shoulder, and my friend let the bars of the 
pen down, and we drove the other cattle out as 
quietly as possible into the woods. 

" Next day, Bridekirk's neighbor, ^who had 
helped kill the beef, left for parts unknown. 
Why? because, when he found the bars let down, 
and the cattle gone, and measured our tracks, 
he knew w^ho had been watching him, and he 
thought it safest to skedaddle. Bridekirk then 
kept close in his cabin. He knew who was on 
his trail this time. We got the men indicted, 
and the sheriff had the order of arrest; but he 
held it for a week, and probably sent word to 
Bridekirk to keep out of the way. So law, as 
usual in these parts, fizzled, and it became 
necessary to try something surer. 

" Now I was told that one morning last week, 
before daybreak, Bridekirk and his hired man 
heard a noise in the yard that sounded as 
though some animal was worrying the hens. 
He suspected it was somebody trying to draw 



264 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

him out into the yard, so he would not go, 
but tried to get his man to see what was up. 
The man was afraid, too, for he had his sus- 
picions. At last the noise outside stopped, and 
the sun began to rise. As nobody seemed to 
be about, Bridekirk stuck his head out of the 
door, and, not seeing anything, slowly stepped 
outside. Now there were two men hidden be- 
hind a fence, with their guns pointed at the 
door. As soon as that cow-thief got fairly out 
of his house, we — these fellows, I mean — 
pulled trigger and shot him dead. The authori- 
ties held a sort of inquest on the case, but all 
that is known of the matter is that he came to 
his death by shots from unknown parties." 

Little did this cold-blooded man suspect, 
while relating his story to me, that his own end 
would be like Bridekirk's, and that he would soon 
fall under an assassin's hand. I became thor- 
oughly disgusted with my companion, who kept 
close to my side hour after hour as we trudged 
through the wilderness. One of his arms was 
held stiffly to his side, and seemed to be almost 
useless. He had attempted a piece of imposi- 
tion on a man who lived near the creek we were 
approaching, and had received the contents of 
the settler's shot-s^un in his side. Most of the 
charge had lodged in the shoulder and arm, 
and the cripple now inveighed against this man, 
and advised us to keep clear of him when we 



\ 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 265 

rowed down the creek. ^^I have nothing against 
Mr. B.," he said; "but he is no gentleman, 
and you better not camp near him." 

Before sunset we entered a heavily grassed 
countr}^, where deer were abundant. They 
sprung from their beds in the tall grass, and 
bounded away as we advanced. At twilight 
the oxen finished their long pull on the banks 
of a little watercourse known as West Bay 
Creek, so called because it flows into the West 
Bay of St. Andrew's Sound. Here we camped 
for the nio^ht. 

The two hired men left us to visit a friend 
who lived several miles distant; but the doctor 
remained with his oxen in our camp all night. 
When the tent was pitched he was permitted 
to enjoy its shelter alone, for Saddles and I took 
to our boats, leaving the murderer to his own 
uneasy dreams. I settled his bill before retiring, 
so he decamped at an earl}^ hour the next morn- 
ing, having first found out where I had hidden 
my cordage, and purloining therefrom my long- 
est and best rope. This was a loss to rne, for 
it was used to secure the boats when they were 
being hauled from place to place; but I would 
gladly have parted with any of my belongings 
to be free from the presence of my unwelcome 
guest; and how resigned his neighbors must, 
have felt when, a few weeks later, they read in 
their newspapers that " W. D. Holly was shot 



266 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX.^ 

last week in his house, in Washington County, 
Florida, by some unknown parties " ! 

We made a hasty Sunday breakfast of corn- 
starch, and pulled down the creek, anxious to 
put some distance between ourselves and the 
doctor. Four miles down the stream, where it 
debouched into West Bay, we found the homes 
of two settlers. The one living on the right 
bank was the man who had given Mr. Holly 
his stiff arm, the other had built himself a rude 
but comfortable cabin on the opposite shore. 
Though there was one delicate-looking woman 
only in this cabin, without any protector, she 
hospitably asked us to make our camp at her 
landing, adding, that when her husband returned 
from the woods she might be able to give us 
some meat. 

Soon a dog came out of the dense forest, 
followed by a man who bore upon his shoulders 
the hind-quarters of a deer which he had killed. 
He bade us welcome, while he remarked that 
there were no Sundays in these parts, where 
one day was just like another; and then pre- 
senting us with half his venison, regretted that 
he had not been aware of our arrival, as he 
could have killed another deer, his dog having 
started fifteen during a short ramble in the 
woods. In the thickets of "ti-ti," which are al- 
most as dense as cane-brakes, the deer, pan- 
thers, and bears take refuo:e; and in this orreat 



/ 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 267 

wilderness of St. Andrew's Bay expert hunters 
can find venison almost any day. 

On Monday morning we rowed through West 
Bay, across the southern end of North Bay, and 
skirted the north coast of the East Bay of St. 
Andrew's, with its picturesque groves of cab- 
bage-palms, for a few miles, when we turned 
southward into the inlet through which the tidal 
waters of the Gulf pass in and out of the sound. 

We were now close to the sea, with a few nar- 
row sandy islands only intervening between us 
and the Gulf of Mexico, and upon these ocean 
barriers we found breezy camping-grounds. Our 
course was by the open sea for six or eight miles, 
when we reached a narrow beach thoroughfare, 
called Crooked Island Ba}^, through which we 
rowed, with Crooked Island on our right hand, 
until we arrived at the head of the bay, where 
we expected to find an outlet to the sea. Being 
overtaken by darkness, we staked our boats on 
the quiet sheet of water, and at sunrise pushed 
on to find the opening through the beach. 
Not a sifrn of human life had been seen since 
we had left the western end of the East Bay of 
St. Andrew's Sound, and we now discovered that 
no outlet to the sea existed, and that Crooked 
Island was not an island, but a long strip of 
beach land which was joined to the main coast 
by a narrow neck of sandy territory, and that 
the interior watercourse ended in a creek. 



268 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Our portage to the sea now loomed up as a 
laborious task. We needed at least one man 
to assist us, and we were fully half a day's row 
from the nearest cabin to the west of us, while 
we might look in vain to the eastward, where 
the uninhabited coast line stretched away with 
its shining sands and shimmering waters for 
thirty miles to Cape San Bias. There, upon a 
low sand-bar, against which the waves lashed 
out their fury, rose a tall light-tower, the onl}^ 
friend of the mariner in all this desolate region. 
We could not look to that distant light for help, 
however, and were thrown entirely upon our 
own feeble resources. 

Going systematically to work, we surveyed 
the best route across Crooked Island, which 
was over the bed of an old inlet; for a hurri- 
cane, many years before, washed out a passage 
through the sand-spit, and for years the tide 
flowed in and out of the interior bay. An- 
other hurricane afterwards repaired the breach 
by filling up the new inlet with sand; so Crooked 
Island enjoyed but a short-lived notoriety, and 
again became an integral part of the continent. 

Our survey of the portage gave encouraging 
results. The Gulf of Mexico was only four 
hundred feet from the bay, and the shortest route 
was the best one; so, starting energetically, we 
dragged the boats by main force across Crooked 
Island, and launched them in the surf without 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



269 



disaster. We then rowed as rapidly as the rough 
sea would permit along the coast towards the 
wide opening of St. Joseph's Bay, the wooded 
beaches of which rose like a cloud in the soft 
mists of a sunny day. The bay was entered at 
four o'clock in the afternoon, and, being out of 



- L 




Thk Portage across Crooked Island. 



water, we hauled our boats high on to the beach, 
and searched eagerly for signs of moisture in the 
soil. 

Leaving Saddles to build a fire and prepare 
our evening meal, I proceeded to investigate our 



270 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

new domain, and soon discovered the remains 
of a cabin near a station, or signal-statf, of the 
United States Coast Survey. Men do not camp 
for a number of days at a time in places destitute 
of v^ater; and the fact of the cabin having been 
built on this spot proved conclusively to me that 
water must be found in the vicinity. After a 
careful and patient search, I discovered a de- 
pression in the high sandy coast, and although 
the sand was perfectly dry, I thought it possible 
that a supply of water had been obtained here 
for the use of the United States Coast Survey 
party — the same party which had erected the 
cabin and planted the signal near it. 

Going quickly to the beach, I found the shell 
of an immense clam, with which I returned, and 
using it as a scoop, or shovel, removed two or 
three bushels of sand, when a moist stratum was 
reached, and my clam-shovel struck the chime 
of a flour-barrel. In my jo}^ I called to Sad- 
dles, for I knew our parched throats would soon 
be relieved. It did not take long to empty the 
barrel of its contents, which task being finished, 
we had the pleasure of seeing the water slowly 
rise and fill the cistern so lately occupied by the 
sand. In half an hour the water became limpid, 
and we sat beside our well, drinking, from time 
to time, like topers, of the sweet water. Our 
water-cans were filled, and no stint in the culi- 
nary department was allowed that evening. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 27 1 

The flames from our camp-fire shot into the 
soft atmosphere, while the fishes, attracted by its 
glare, leaped by scores, in a state of bewilder- 
ment, from the now quiet water. St. Joseph's 
Bay has an ample depth of water for sea-going 
vessels, while its many species of shells make 
it one of the best points on the northern Gulf 
coast for the conchologist. 

Although sorry to leave our limpid spring, 
we launched the boats at seven o'clock the next 
morning, following the north side of the ba}^ 
until we arrived at the deserted site of the city 
of St. Joseph. It seemed impossible to realize 
that on this desolate spot there had been, only 
thirty or forty years before, a prosperous city, 
with a large population and a busy cotton-port, 
accessible to the largest vessels, and threatening 
a steady rivalry with Appalachicola. Railroads 
were the enemies of these southern cities, as 
they diverted the cotton, grown in the interior, 
from its natural channels by river to the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The system of '• time-freights," on railroads 
to the eastern Atlantic ports of Charleston and 
Savannah, had reduced the once proinising city 
of St. Joseph to one shanty and a rotten pier. 
Appalachicola a^so felt the iron hand of com- 
petition, and her line of steamboats lost the car- 
riage upon her noble river of the cotton from 
the distant interior. Railroads were rapidly 



272 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

constructed running east and west, and the riv- 
ers flowins: to the south were robbed of their 
commerce. 

Beyond St. Joseph city the scenery became al- 
most tropical in its character, and palmettos grew 
in rank luxuriance on the low savannas. The 
long narrow coast on the south side of the bay 
trended suddenly to the south, and terminated 
in Cape San Bias, while the sound was ended 
abruptly by a strip of land which connected the 
long cape to the main. The system of interior 
w^atercourses here came to a natural end; and 
pulling our boats upon the strand, we landed by 
a large turtle-pen, near which was a deserted 
grass hut, evidently the home of the turtle-hunter 
during the "turtle season." Leaving the boats 
on the salt marsh, we entered the woods and 
ascended the sand-hills of the Gulf coast, w^hen 
a boundless view of the sea broke upon us. 
The shining strand stretched in regular lines 
four miles to the south, where the light-tower 
on the point of the cape rose above the inter- 
vening forest. Greeting it as the face of a friend, 
we rejoiced to see it so near; and standing en- 
tranced with the beauty of the vision before 
us, — the boundless sea, the most ennobling sight 
in all nature, — we congratulated ourselves that 
we had arrived safely at Cape San Bias. 





o 










r>) 










^ 




*>^ 






H 




?- 






r*i 










^ 


^. 


.-ft 






^ 


'^ 


'>. 




$ 


3^ 


5 


,t« 


^ 


k^ 


r- 


:^ 


"* 




■^ 




• 


"> 


J 


VI 


^ 


=> 


^> 


:^ 




"0 


^ 








c: 




Cs- 









4 






c ^ C 



\ 



'.: V 





fsT^"^ 



i 
{ 






mmv^ftsmm 




•5 


i 
-1 

? i 

i 














1^- 

-1 1 

! 



L 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 273 



CHAPTER XI. 

FROM CAPE SAN BLAS TO ST. MARKS. 

a portage across cape san blas. — the cow-hunters. — 
a visit to the light-house. — once more on the sea. — 
portage into st. vincent sound. — apalachicola. — st. 
George's sound and ocklockony river. — arrival at st. 

marks. the negro postmaster. — a philanthropist and 

his neighbors. — a continuous and protected water-way 
froxm the mississippi river to the atlantic coast. 

A PORTAGE now loomed in our horizon. 
The distance across the neck of land was 
one-third of a mile only, but the ascent of the 
hills of the Gulf beach would prove a formida- 
ble task. I proposed to Saddles that he should 
return to the boats, while I hurried down the 
beach to the point of the cape to find a man to 
assist us in their transportation from the bay to 
the sea. 

While discussing the plan, a noise in the thicket 
caught my ear, and turning our eyes to the spot, 
we saw two men hurrying from their ambush 
into the forest. We at once started in pursuit 
of them. When overtaken, they looked con- 
fused, and acknowledged that the presence of 
strangers was so unusual in that region that they 
18 



274 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

had been watching our movements critically 
from the moment we landed until we discov- 
ered them. These men wore the rough garb 
of cow-hunters, and the older of the two in- 
formed me that his home was in Apalachicola. 
He was looking after his cattle, which had a 
very long range, and had been camping with 
his assistant along St. Joseph's Sound for many 
days, being now en route for his home. Two 
ponies were tied to a tree in a thicket, while a 
bed of palmetto leaves and dried grass showed 
where the hunters had slept the previous night. 

These men assured us that the happiest life 
was that of the cow-hunter, who could range 
the forest for miles upon his pony, and sleep 
where he pleased. The idea was, that the 
nearer one's instincts and mode of life ap- 
proached to that of a cow, the happier the man : 
only another version, after all, of living close to 
nature. One of these wood-philosophers, taking 
his creed from the animals in which all his 
hopes centred, said we should be as simple in 
our habits as an ox, as gentle as a cow, and do 
no more injury to our fellow-man than a year- 
ling. He was certain there would be less sin in 
the world if men were turned into cattle; was 
sure cattle were happier than men, and generally 
more useful. 

Upon learning our dilemma, the good-natured 
fellows set at once to work to help us. We 

/ 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 275 

cut two pine poles, and placing one boat across 
them, each man grasped an end of a pole, and 
thus, upon a species of litter, we lifted the bur- 
den from the ground and bore it slowly across 
the land to the sea. Returning to the bay, we 
transported the second boat in the same man- 
ner; and making a third trip, carried away our 
provisions, blankets, &c. 

It was now evening, and viewing w^ith satis- 
faction our little boats resting upon the beautiful 
beach, we thanked our new friends heartily for 
their kindness. The owner of a thousand cat- 
tle gave us a warm invitation to visit his orange 
grove in Apalachicola, and then retired w^ith 
his man to their nest in the woods, while we 
slept in our boats, with porpoises and black-fish 
sounding their nasal calls all night in the sea 
which beat upon the strand at our feet. 

In the morning the wind arose and sent the 
waves tumbling far in upon the beach. After 
breakfast I walked to the extremity of the cape, 
and dined with Mr. Robert Colman, the prin- 
cipal light-keeper. He was a most ingenious 
man, and an expert in the use of tools. The 
United States Light House Establishment se- 
lects its light-keepers from the retired army of 
wounded soldiers. In all my voyages along our 
coast, and on inland waters, I have found the 
good results of the perfect discipline exercised 
by the superintendents of this bureau. These 



276 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

keepers live along a coast of some thousands 
of miles in extent on the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, many of them 
in isolated positions, but honesty, economy, and 
intelligent skill are everj^where apparent; and 
these men work like an arm}^ of veterans. I 
have intruded upon their privacy at all hours, 
but have never found one of them open to 
criticism. There is no shirking of the onerous 
duties of their position. Too much praise can- 
not be given to these light-keepers in their 
lonely towers, or to the intelligent heads which 
direct and govern their important work. 

As I was leaving the light-house, a young 
woman approached me, and introducing herself 
as a visitor to the keeper's family, said she had 
a favor to ask. Would it be too much trouble 
for the stranger, after he reached New York, to 
inquire the price of a switch of human hair^of 
just the shade of her own flaxen locks, and 
v^^rite her about it! Of course such an appeal 
could not be disregarded; but I confess that as 
I gazed upon the boundless sea, and along the 
uninhabited strand, and into the unsettled for- 
ests, I wondered where the men or women were 
to be found to appreciate the imported New 
York sw^itch. AVould it not " waste its sweet- 
ness on the desert air " in the unpeopled wil- 
derness? ^ 

The boisterous weather kept us on the beach 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 277 

until Friday, when we launched our boats and 
rowed along the coast three miles to a point 
opposite a lagoon which was separated from 
the sea by a naiTow strip of land. While pull- 
ing along the beach, great black-fish, some of 
them A^^eighing at least one thousand pounds, 
came up out of the sea and divided into four 
companies. The first ranged itself upon our 
right, the second upon our left, the third, form- 
ing a school, proceeded in advance, while the 
fourth brought up the rear. Unlike the frisky 
porpoises, these big fellows convoyed us in 
the inost dignified manner, heaving their dark, 
shining, scaleless bodies half out of the water 
as they surged along within a few feet of our 
boats. 

When we arrived at our point of disembarka- 
tion, and turned shoreward to run through the 
surf, our strange companions seemed loath to 
leave us, but rolled about in the ofiing, making 
their peculiar nasal sounds, and spouting, like 
whales, jets of spray into the air. A landing 
was accomplished without shipping much water, 
and we immediately hauled the boats across the 
beach, about three or four hundred feet, into a 
narrow lagoon, the western branch of St. Vin- 
cent's Sound. 

Indian Pass was two miles east of our portage. 
It is an inlet of the sea, through vv^hich small 
vessels pass into St. Vincent's Sound, en roitte 



278 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

for the town of Apalachicola. Heavy seas 
were, however, breaking upon its bar at that 
time, and it would have been a dangerous ex- 
periment to have entered it in our small boats. 
Emerging from the lagoon, the broad areas of 
St. Vincent's Sound and Apalachicola Bay met 
our gaze, while beyond them were spread the 
waters of St. George's Sound. 

Following the coast on our left, numerous 
reefs of large and very fat oysters continually 
obstructed our progress. We gathered a bushel 
with our hands in a very few minutes; but as 
the wind commenced to blow most spitefully, 
and the heavy forests of palms on the low shore 
offered a pleasant shelter, we disembarked about 
sunset in a magnificent grove of palmetto-trees, 
spending a pleasant evening in feasting upon 
the delicious bivalves, roasted and upon the half 
shell. 

The tempest held us prisoners in this wild 
retreat for two days, and during that time, if we 
had been the possessor of a dog, we might have 
supped and dined upon venison and wild turkey. 
As it was, we were well content to subsist upon 
wild ducks and the fine oysters, with bread 
from fresh wheat-flour, baked in our Dutch 
oven, or bake-kettle, and coffee that never tastes 
elsewhere as it does in camp. 

At last the gale went down with the sun, and 
we rowed in the evening thirteen miles up the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 279 

bay to Apalachicola, and went into camp upon 
the sanely beach at the lower end of the town. 
While sleeping soundly in our boats, at an early 
hour the next morning some one came " gently 
tapping at my chamber-door," or, in sea phrase, 
pounding upon my hatch. I soon discovered 
that my visitor was Captain Daniel Fry, United 
States Inspector of Steamboats. His pretty 
cottage, environed with beds of blooming flow- 
ers, was perched upon the sandy bluff* above 
us. The captain, in a nautical way, claimed us 
as sah^age, and we were soon enjoying his gen- 
erous hospitality. In this isolated town, once a 
busy cotton-shipping port, there was a popula- 
tion of about one thousand souls, among whom, 
conspicuous for his urbane manners and scien- 
tific ability, lived Dr. A. W. Chapman, the author 
of the ''Flora of the Southern United States." 

While at New Orleans I had addressed a letter 
to the postmaster at St. Marks, Florida, request- 
ing him to forward my letters to Apalachicola, 
Jbut the request had not been noticed. The mys- 
tery was, however, explained by Lieutenant N., 
of the Coast Survey schooner Silliman, who one 
day called upon me, and said that when he 
stopped at St. Marks for his mail, a few days 
previous to my arrival at Apalachicola, he saw 
about thirty letters addressed to me lying loosely 
upon the desk of the negro postmaster of that 
marshy settlement. My letter of instruction had 



28o FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

been received, but as the postmaster could 
not read, no notice had been taken of it. The 
coast survey officer had kindly gathered my let- 
ters in one parcel, and had deposited them for 
safe-keeping w^ith the postmaster's white clerk. 
The responsible position of postmaster was filled 
by an ignorant colored man, because his politics 
were those of the party then in power. 

Nor was this an exceptional case, many such 
appointments having been made, as an inevitable 
result of a peculiar enfranchisement in which 
there is no restriction, and where license stands 
for libei^y. While on my " Vo}- age of the 
Paper Canoe," I met in one county in Georgia, 
throusrh which flows the beautiful Altamaha, the 
colored county treasurer, who lived in a little 
backwoods' settlement a few miles from Darien. 
He could neither read nor write, but his business 
was managed and the county funds handled by a 
white politician of the ^'reconstructing" element 
then in power, which was sapping the life-blood 
of the south, and bonding every state within its 
selfish grasp by dishonest legislative acts. The 
poor black man was simply a tool for the white 
charlatan, living in a miserable log cabin, and 
receiving a very small share of the peculations 
of his white clerk. When all the enfranchised 
are educated, and not until then, will the great 
source of evil be removed from our politics which 
to-day endangers our future liberty of self-gov- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 28 1 

ernment. We are floating in a sea of unlimited 
and unlettered enfranchisement, vainly tugging 
at the helm of our ship of state, while master- 
minds stoop to cater to the prejudices of hundreds 
of thousands of voters who cannot read the names 
upon the ticket they deposit in the ballot-box — 
the ballot-box which is the guardian of the con- 
stitutional liberties of a republic. 

We left the kind people of Apalachicola, and 
crossed the bay to St. George's Sound, with a 
cargo of delicacies, for Captain Fry had filled 
our lockers with various comforts for the inner 
man, while our friend, the cattle-owner, whom 
we had met at Cape San Bias, and who had now 
returned to his home, stocked us with delicious 
oransfcs from his g-rove on the outskirts of the 
city. 

Four miles to the east of Cat Point we saw the 
humble homes of Peter Sheepshead and Sam 
Pompano, two fishermen, whose uniform success 
in catching their favorite species of fish had won 
for them their euphonious titles. We camped 
at night near the mouth of Crooked River, which 
enters the sound opposite Dog Island, having 
rowed twenty-four miles. If w^e continued along 
the sound, after passing out of its eastern end, we 
would be upon the open sea, and might have 
difficulty in doubling the great South Cape; so 
we took the interior route, ascending Crooked 
River through a low pine savanna country, to the 



c* 



282 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

Ocklockony River, which is, in fact, a continua- 
tion of Crooked River. The region about Crook- 
ed and Ocklockony rivers is destitute of the hab- 
itation of man. 

About midway between St. George's Sound and 
the Gulf coast we traversed a vast swamp, Avhere 
the ground was carpeted with the dwarf saw- 
palmettos. A fire had killed all the large trees, 
and their blasted, leafless forms were covered 
with the flaunting tresses of Spanish moss. The 
tops of many of these trees were crowned by the 
Osprey's nest, and the birds were sitting on their 
eggs, or feeding their young with fish, which 
they carried in their talons from the sea. So 
numerous were these fish-hawks that we named 
the blasted swamp the Home oftheOsprey. We 
spent one night in this swamp serenaded by the 
deep calls of the male alligators, which closely 
resembled the low bellowing of a bull. 

About noon the next day signs of cultivated 
life appeared, and we passed the houses of some 
settlers, and the saw-mill of a New Yorker. At 
dusk our boats entered a little sound, and by nine 
o'clock in the evening we arrived at the Gulf of 
Mexico, in a region of shoal water, much cut up 
by oyster reefs. The tide being very low, the 
boats were anchored inside of an oyster reef, 
which aflbrded protection from the inflowing 
swell of the sea. We shaped our course next 
day for St. Marks, along a low, marshy coast, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 283 

where oyster reefs, in shoal water^ frequently 
barred our progress. From South Cape to St. 
Marks the coast, broken by the mouths of sev- 
eral creeks and rivers, trends to the northeast, 
while for twenty miles to the east of the light- 
house, which rises conspicuously on the eastern 
shore of the entrance to St. Marks River, the 
coast bends to the southeast to the latitude of 
Cedar Keys, where it turns abruptly south, and 
forms one side of the peninsula of Florida. 

The great contour of the Gulf of Mexico, into 
which St. Marks River empties, is known to 
geographers as Apalachee Bay. On that part 
of the coast between the St. Marks and Suwanee 
rivers, the bed of the Gulf of Mexico slopes so 
gradually that when seven miles away from the 
land a vessel will be in only eighteen feet of 
water. At this distance from the shore is found 
the continuous coral formation; but nearer to 
the coast it is found in spots only. 

While traversing this coast from St. Marks to 
Cedar Keys, I observed the peculiar features of 
a long coast-line of salt marshes, against which 
the waves broke gently. With the exception of 
a few places, wdiere the upland penetrated these 
savannas to the waters of the sea, the marshes 
were soft alluvium, covered with tall coarse 
o-rasses, the sameness of which was occasionally 
broken by a hammock, or low mound of tirmer 
soil, which rose like an island out of the level 



284 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

sea of green. The hammocks were heavily 
wooded with the evergreen live-oaks, the yel- 
low pine, and the palmetto. From half a mile 
to two miles back of the low savannas of the 
coast, rose, like a wall of green, the old forests, 
grand and solemn in their primeval character. 

The marshes were much cut up by creeks, 
some of which came from the mainland, but 
most of them had their sources in the savannas, 
and served as drains to the territory which was 
frequently submerged by the sea. When the 
southerly winds send towards the land a bois- 
terous sea, the. long, natural, inclined plane of 
the Gulf bottom seems to act as a pacifier to 
the waves, for they break down as they roll over 
the continually shoaling area in approaching the 
marshes; and there is no undertow, or any of the 
peculiar features which make the surf on other 
parts of the coast very dangerous in rough 
weather. The submarine grass growing upon 
the sandy bottom as far as six or eight miles 
from shore, also helps to smooth down the 
waves. 

When the strong wind blows off the coast on 
to the Gulf, it is known to seamen as a " north- 
er," and so violent are these winds that their 
force, acting on the sea, rapidly diminishes its 
depth within twelve or fifteen miles of the 
marshes. A coasting-vessel drawing five feet 
of water will anchor off Apalachee Bay in 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 285 

eight feet of water, at the commencement of a 
" norther," and in four or five hours, unless the 
crew put to sea, the vessel will be left upon the 
dry bottom of the Gulf After the wind falls, 
the water will return, and the equilibrium will 
be restored. 

We ascended St. Marks River, and passed the 
site of a town w^hich had been w^ashed out of 
existence in the year 1843 by the eifects of a 
hurricane on the sea. These hurricanes are in 
season during August and September. The 
village of St. Marks consisted of about thirty 
houses, the occupants of which, with two or 
three exceptions, were negroes. The land is 
very low, and at times subjected to inundation. 
A railroad terminated here, but the business 
of the place supported only two trains a week, 
and they ran directly to the capital of Florida, 
the beautiful city of Tallahassee, eighteen miles 
distant. 

The negro postmaster courteously presented 
me wi^th my package of letters, and I had an 
opportunity to observe the way in which he ful- 
filled his duties. When the mail arrived, it was 
thrown upon a desk in one corner of a small 
grocery store, and any person desiring an epistle 
went in, and, fumbling over the letters, took 
what he claimed as his own. 

The railroad agent, a young northerner, I 
found sleeping soundly in his telegraph oliice, 



2S6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

though the noonday sun was pouring in his Avin- 
dows. He apologized for being caught nap- 
ping, but declared it was his only amusement 
in that desolate region of damps, and assured 
me a man would deteriorate less rapidly by 
sleeping away his idle hours than by keeping 
awake to what was going on in the neighboring 
hamlet. Besides the United States Signal offi- 
cer, his only intelligent neighbor was a brother 
of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who had pur- 
chased a property, two or three years before, in 
the once flourishing town of Newport, a few miles 
up the river. He spoke feelingly of the efforts 
of the Rev. Charles Beecher to educate his en- 
franchised negro neighbors; of his inviting them 
to his house, and laboring for the welfare of their 
souls. All the patient and Christian efforts of 
the philanthropist had proved unavailing, and 
thieving and lying were still much in vogue. 

It has been proposed by engineers, to connect 
all the interior Gulf-coast watercourses from the 
Mississippi River at New Orleans to the Suwa- 
nee River in Florida. To achieve this end it 
will be necessary to excavate several canals at 
points now used as portages. From St. Marks 
to the Suwanee River there are some rivers 
which might be used in connecting and per- 
fecting this great interior water-way. 

I inentioned in my "Voyage of the Paper Ca- 
noe," that preliminary surveys, under General 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 287 

Gilmore, had been made for a continuous water- 
way across northern Florida to the Atlantic 
coast, via the Suwanee and St. Mary's rivers. 
Detailed surveys are now in progress. Those 
interested in this enterprise hope to see the 
produce of the Mississippi valley towed in 
barges through this continuous water-way from 
New Orleans to the Atlantic ports of St. Mary's, 
Fernandina, Savannah, and Charleston. The 
northwestern as well as the southern states 
would derive advantasfe from this extension of 
the Mississippi system to the Atlantic seaboard, 
and its execution seems to be considered by 
many a duty of the national government. 

There has been little written upon the water- 
courses of northwestern Florida, but several of 
the central, southern, and Atlantic coast rivers 
and lakes have been carefully explored by Mr. 
Frederick A. Ober, of Massachusetts, a young 
and enthusiastic naturalist, who, as correspond- 
ent of the " Forest and Stream," has pub- 
lished in the columns of that paper a mass of 
interesting and valuable geographical matter, 
throwing much light on regions heretofore un- 
familiar to the public. 



2 88 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



CHAPTER XII. 

FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER. 

ALONG THE COAST. — SADDLES BREAKS DOWN, — A REFUGE WITH 

. THE FISHERMEN. CAMP IN THE PALM FOREST. — PARTING WITH 

SADDLES. — OUR NEIGHBOR THE ALLIGATOR. — DISCOVERY OF 
THE TRUE CROCODILE IN FLORIDA, — THE DEVIL'S WOOD-PILE. 

— DEADMAN'S bay, BOWLEGS POINT, — THE COAST SURVEY 

CAMP, — A DAY ABOARD THE "READY." — THE SUWANEE RIVER. 

— THE END. 

LEAVING St. Marks, we rowed down the 
stream to the forks of the St. Marks and 
Wakulla rivers. The sources of the Wakulla 
w^ere twelve miles above these forks, and con- 
sisted of a wonderful spring of crystal water, 
which could be entered by small boats. This 
curious river bursts forth as though by a 
single bound, from the subterranean caverns 
of limestone. Each of the several remarkable 
springs in Florida is supposed, by those living 
in its vicinity, to be the veritable " fountain of 
youth;" and this one shared the usual fate, for 
we w^ere assured that this was the spring for 
which the cavalier Ponce de Leon vainly sought 
in the old times of Spanish exploration in the 
New World. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 289 

On Monday, March 13th, we left St. Marks 
River, and, as the north wind blew, were forced 
to keep from one to two miles off the land on the 
open Gulf to lind even two feet of water. In 
many places we found rough pieces of coral 
rocks upon the bottom, and in several instances 
grounded upon them. As the wind wxnt down, 
the tide, which on this coast frequently rises only 
from eighteen inches to two feet, favored us with 
more w^ater, and by night we were able to get close 
to the marshes, and enter a little creek west of 
the Ocilla River, where, staking our boats along- 
side the soft marsh, we supped on chocolate and 
dry bread, and slept comfortably in our little craft 
until morning. 

We were now in an almost uninhabited re- 
gion, where only an occasional fisherman or 
sponger is met; but as we pulled along the coast 
the day after our camp in the marshes, we wxre 
struck w^ith the absence of any sign of the pres- 
ence of man. We had hoped to meet with the 
vessels of sponge-gatherers anchored in the 
vicinity of Rock Island, to which place they 
resort to clean their crop; but when we passed 
the island in the afternoon, so scantily clothed 
with herbage, and upon which a few palms grew 
out of the shallow soil, it was deserted, while 
not a single sail could be seen upon the horizon 
of the sea. 

My companion had not been well for several 

19 



290 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

days, and he informed me at this late date that 
he was subject to malarial fever, or, as he called 
it, " swamp fever." It had been contracted by 
him while living on one of the bayous of south- 
ern Louisiana during a warm season. Swamp 
fever, when at its height, usually produces tem- 
porary insanity; and he alarmed me by stating 
that he had been deprived of his reason for 
da3's at a time during his attacks. The use of 
daily stimulants had kept up his constitutional 
vigor for several months; but as ours w^as a tem- 
perance diet, he gradually, after we left Biloxi 
and 4he res^ions where stimulants could be ob- 
tained, became nervous, lost his appetite, and 
was now suffering from chills and fever. He was 
much depressed after leaving St. Marks, and 
had long fits of sullenness, so that he would row 
for hours without speaking. I tried to cheer 
him, and on one occasion penetrated the forest a 
long distance to obtain some panacea with which 
to brace his unsettled nerves. 

Saddles had deceived me as to the necessity 
of taking daily drams, which habit is, to say the 
least, a most inconvenient one for persons engaged 
in explorations of isolated parts of the coast, and 
A'oyaging in small boats; so we had both suffered 
much in consequence of his bad habit. To fur- 
nish one moderate drinker with the liquid stim- 
ulant necessary for a boat voyage from New Or- 
leans to Cedar Keys, at least five gallons of whis- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 29 1 

ke}^, and a large and heavy demijohn in which 
to store it securely, must form a portion of the 
cargo. This bulk occupies important space in 
the confined quarters of a boat, every inch of 
which is needed for necessary articles, while the 
momentary and artificial strength given to the 
system is never, except as a remediable agent, 
productive of any real or lasting benefit. My 
unfortunate companion had become so accus- 
tomed to the daily use of liquor, and his shat- 
tered system had been so propped by it, that 
he had been like a man walking on stilts; and 
now that they were knocked away, his own feet 
failed to support him, and a reaction was the in- 
evitable result. 

After leaving Rock Island, and when about 
four miles beyond the Fenholloway River, while 
off a vast tract of marshes, poor Saddles broke 
down completely. He could not row another 
stroke. I towed his boat into a little cove, and 
was forced to leave him, with the fever raging 
in his blood, that I might search for a creek, 
and a hammock upon which to camp. Look- 
ing to the east, I saw a long, low point of marsh 
projecting its attenuated point southward, while 
upon it rose a signal-staff of the United States 
Coast Survey. A black object seemed heaped 
against the base of the signal; and while I 
gazed at what looked like a bear, or a heap 
of dark soil, it began to move, breaking up into 



292 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



three or four fragments, each of which seemed 
to roll off into the grass, where they disap- 
peared. 

I pulled for the point as rapidly as possible, 
for I hoped, while hardly daring to believe, that 



iii#l 




Saddles j3reaks Dcwn, 



this singular apparition might be human beings. 
The high grass formed an impenetrable barrier 
for m}^ curious vision; but nearing the spot, 
voices were plainly audible on the other side of 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 293 

the narrow point, as though a party of men were 
in lively discussion. Rowing close to the land, 
and resting on my oars to gain time to recon- 
noitre either friends or foes, the deep but cul- 
tivated voice of a man fell upon my ear. A 
patriot was evidently haranguing his fellow- 
fishermen, who, after lunching beside the Coast 
Survey signal, and not observing the proximity 
of a stranger, had repaired to their boats on the 
east side of the marsh. 

"Yes," came the tones of the orator through 
the high grass, "yes, to this state have we Amer- 
icans been reduced! Not satisfied with having 
ravaged our country, conquering but not sub- 
duing our Confederate government, the enemy 
has put over us a Carpet-Bag government of 
northern adventurers and southern scalawags 
and NIGGERS. Fifty niggers sit as representa- 
tives of our state in the legislature of Florida, 
and vote in a solid body for whichever party 
pays them their price. They are giving away 
our state lands to monopolists, and we have tax- 
bills like THIS one imposed upon us." Here the 
orator paused, apparently taking a paper from 
his pocket. " Here it is," he resumed, " in black 
and white. On a wild piece of forest land, and 
a few acres of clearing, (which they appraise 
at twenty-five cents, when it cost me only six 
cents and a quarter per acre,) I was saddled 



To State Taxes proper, - - 


- 


.70 




on 


General Sinking Fund, - 


- 


•30 




(C 


Special Sinking Fund, 


- 


.16 




Ifc 


General School Tax, - - 


- 


.10 


36 


u 


Total State Tax, - 


I. 


a 


To County Tax proper, - - 


- 


•50 




li 


County School Tax, - - 


- 


•50 




(( 


Special County Building Ti 


IX, 


•35 




l( 


County Specific Tax, - - 


_ 2 


1.00 


35 


(( 


Total County Tax, 


-3- 


u 



294 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

with this outrageous bill. I will read to you 
the several items: 

Mr. L. H Dr. 

- - $100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 

- - 100.00 
Total State and County Tax, $4.61 on - - - 100.00 

" You will find by these figures that I am 
compelled to pay a state and county tax, on an 
over-appraised property, amounting to four dol- 
lars and sixty-one cents upon every one hun- 
dred dollars I possess. Under this kind of 
taxation we are growing poorer every day of 
our lives. Now, gentlemen, can you censure 
me for detesting the Carpet-bag government of 
my native state after you have heard this state- 
ment? Rome in days of tyranny did no such 
injustice to her citizens. To be a Roman was 
greater than to be a king; and here let me re- 
niark — Bob Squash ! what 's that you are 
squinting at through the grass?" " Lor' sakes, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 295 

Massa Hampton, I does b'lieve it 's a man in a 
sort of a boat. I nebber see de like befoM " 

At this point the company struggled through 
the hio^h e^rass and invited me to land. Beings 
seriously alarmed for my companion, who was 
lying helpless in his boat half a mile away, I 
quickly explained my situation, and was at once 
advised to ascend Spring Creek, on the east side 
of the point of marsh, to the swamp, where the 
orator said I ^vould find his camp, and his part- 
ner in the fishing-business, who would assist me 
to the best of his ability. The orator promised 
to follow us after makinsf one more cast with 
his seine for red-fish. I returned as fast as pos- 
sible to Saddles, and trying to infuse his failing 
heart with courage, fastened his boat's painter 
to the stern of the duck-boat, and followed the 
course indicated by the fishermen. 

Upon entering Spring Creek, with my com- 
panion in tow, we were soon encompassed on 
all sides by the marshes; and as the boats slowly 
ascended the crooked stream, the fring^es of the 
leathery-crested palms appeared close to the 
margins of the savanna. The land increased 
in height a few inches as I followed the reaches 
of the creek, and, when a mile from its mouth, 
entered the rank luxuriance of a swamp, where, 
in a thicket of red cedars, palmettos, and Span- 
ish bayonets, I discovered two low huts, thatched 
with palm-leaves, which afforded temporary 



296 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

shelter to Captain F., a planter from the inte- 
rior, his friend the orator, and their employees 
both white and black. The kind-hearted cap- 
tain understood my companion's case at a 
glance, and when our tent was pitched, and a 
comfortable bed prepared, Saddles w^as put un- 
der his care. 

He could not have fallen into better hands, for 
the planter had gone through many experiences 
in the treatment of fevers of all kinds. It was 
indeed a boon to find in the unpeopled wilds 
a shelter and a physician for the sick man; 
but the future loomed heavily before me, for 
though Saddles might improve, he Avould be 
pretty sure on the eighth day to have a return of 
his malady, and would probably again break 
down in a ravinof condition. 

The camp was a restful and interesting re- 
treat. To reach the spot, the fishing-party had 
been oblisred to cut a road eic^ht miles throu^'h 
a swampy district, in places building a rough 
crossway to make their progress possible. The 
creek had its sources in several springs, which 
burst from the earth just above the camp. The 
water was of a blue tint, and slightly impreg- 
nated with sulphur, lime, and iron. In this 
secluded place there was an abundance of deer 
and wild turkeys. 

The early morning meal of these hunters and 
fishermen was a veritable dt jetliner a la four- 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 297 

cliette^ for their menu included venison, tur- 
key, sweet-potatoes, hoe-cakes made from fresh 
maize flour, and excellent coffee. Captain F. 
and an old negro woman remained in camp to 
clean and salt down the fish caught on the pre- 
vious afternoon, while the orator and his party 
w^ent down the creek in two long, narrow scows, 
loaded with two nets, their necessary fishing im- 
plements, and a hearty luncheon. Long poles 
were used to propel their craft. Upon meeting 
with a school of fish, they encompassed it with 
the two nets, each of which was three hundred 
feet long, and easily captured the whole lot, 
which was composed of several species. 

When in luck, the fishing-party returned to 
the camp by noon; but when the wind inter- 
fered with their success, they did not reach their 
swampy retreat until night. After a rest, and a 
good, warm supper, the orator and one of his 
white associates, each with his torch of resinous 
pine wood and well-loaded gun, \vould quietly 
traverse the silent forests and grassy savannas, 
luring to destruction the fascinated and unsus- 
pecting deer. Thus stalking through the dark- 
ness, and peering eagerly on all sides, the 
appearance of the fire-like globes of the deer's 
eyes, from the reflected' light of the hunters' 
torches, was the signal to fire, which meant, 
w^th their unerring aim, death to their prey and 
future feasts for themselves. 



298 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

With their venison these men served a very 
palatable dish made from the terminal bud of 
the palmetto known as the " cabbage," and from 
which the tree derives its name of ^^cabbage- 
palm." A negro ascended the palin and cut 
the bud at its junction with the top of the tree. 
It was then thrown to the ground, and climbing 
other trees, more followed in quick succession. 
When a sufficient quantity had been gathered, 
the turnip part, from which the tender shoot 
starts, was cut off and thrown aside, as it was 
bitter to the taste. The shoot, divested of this 
part, resembled a solid roll, from four to six 
inches in diameter. From this was unrolled 
and thrown aside the outer coverings, leav- 
ing the tender white interior tissues about 
three inches in diameter and fourteen inches 
in length. Thus divested of all objectionable 
matter, the cabbage could be eaten raw, though 
it was much improved by cooking, the boiling 
process removing every trace of the acrid, 
or turnip, flavor. These men ate it dressed 
in the same way as ordinary cabbage, and 
it was an excellent substitute for that dish. 
The black bear is as fond of the palmetto- 
cabbage as his enemy the hunter. He ascends 
the tree, breaks down the palm-leaves, and de- 
vours the bud, evidently appreciating the feast. 
After the removal of the bud the tree dies; so 
this is after all an expensive dainty. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 299 

Captain F. had pre-empted a tract of one 
hundred and sixty acres of land, to cover the 
sources of Spring Creek, and it was his inten- 
tion to resort to this camp every year during 
the mullet-fishing season, which is from Septem- 
ber to Januar}^ The salted mullet is the popu- 
lar market-fish with the back-country people, 
though the red-fish is by far the finer for ta- 
ble use. 

While with these men, we were treated with 
the generous hospitality known only in the for- 
est, but Saddles did not improve. He seemed 
to be suffering from a low form of intermittent 
fever, and looked like anything but a subject for 
a long row. Captain F. insisted upon sending 
the invalid in his wagon sixteen miles to his 
home, where he promised to nurse the unfor- 
tunate man until he was able to travel forty 
miles further to a railroad station. On the 15th 
of March, the party, having made their final ar- 
rangements, were ready to make the start for 
home. It was our last day together. 

Circumstances over which I had no control 
forced me to part from Saddles. I furnished 
him with a liberal supply of funds to enable 
him to reach Fernandina, Florida, by rail, and 
afterwards sent him a draft for an amount suf- 
ficient to pay his expenses from Cedar Keys to 
New Orleans, as he abandoned all his previous in- 
tentions of returning to his old home in the north. 



300 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

The Riddle with its outfit, and about sixty 
pounds of shot and a large supply of powder, 
I presented to the good captain who had so 
generously offered to care for my unfortunate 
companion. As I was to traverse the most des- 
olate part of the coast between Spring Creek and 
Cedar Ke3's alone, I deemed it prudent to divest 
myself of every thing that could be spared from 
my boat's outfit, in order to lighten the hull. I 
had made an estimate of chances, and concluded 
that four or five days would carry me to the end 
of my voyage, if the weather continued favora- 
ble; so, on the evening of March 15, the little 
duck-boat w\is prepared for future duty. 

The hunters and fishermen brought into camp 
the spoils of the forest and the treasures of the 
sea, while the grinning negress exerted herself 
to prepare the parting feast. Deep in the re- 
cesses of the wild swamp our camp-fire crackled 
and blazed, sending up its flaming tongues until 
they almost met the dense foliage above our 
heads, while seated upon the ground we feasted, 
and told tales of the past. Poor Saddles tried 
to be cheerful, but made a miserable failure of 
it; and his pale face was the skeleton at our 
banquet, for human nature is so constituted that 
a suffering man gains sympathy, even though he 
be only paying the penalty of his own past mis- 
demeanors. 

My boat was tied alongside the bank of the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 30I 

creek, close to the palmetto huts. There were 
only two feet of ivater in the stream as I sat 
in the little sneak-box at midnight and went 
through the usual preparations for stowing my- 
self away for the night. I touched the clear 
water w4th my hands as it laved the sides of 
my floating home, but my gaze could not pen- 
etrate the limpid current, for the heavy shades 
of the palms gave it a dark hue. I thought of 
the duties of the morrow, and also of poor Sad- 
dles, who was tossing uneasily upon the blankets 
in his tent near by, when there was a mysterious 
movement in the w^ater under the boat. Some- 
thing unusual was there, for its presence was 
betrayed by the large bubbles of air which 
came up from the bottom and floated upon the 
surface of the w\ater. Being too sleepy to make 
an investigation, I coiled myself in my nest, and 
drew the hatch-cover over the hold. 

The next morning my friends clustered on the 
bank, giving me a kind farewell as I pushed the 
duck-boat gently into the channel of the creek. 
Suddenly Saddles, who had been gazing ab- 
stractedly into the water under my boat, hur- 
ried into the tent, and in an instant reappeared 
with the gun I had given him in his hands. 
He slowly pointed it at the spot in the water 
where my boat had been moored during the 
night, and drawing the trigger, an explosion fol- 
lowed, while the water flew upward in fine jets 



302 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

into the air. Then, to the astonished g-aze of 
the party on the bank, an alligator as long as 
my boat arose to view, and, roused by the shock, 
hurried into deeper water. 

It was now evident what the lodger under my 
boat had been, and I confess the thought of 
being separated from this fierce saurian by only 
half an inch of cedar sheathing during a long 
night, was not a pleasant one; and I shuddered 
while my imagination pictured the consequences 
of a nocturnal bath in which I might have in- 
dulged. 

Having observed in different countries the hab- 
its of soine of the individuals which compose 
the order Sauria, — the lizards, — I will pre- 
sent to the reader what I have gleaned from my 
observation upon two species, one of which is 
the true alligator (A. Mississippiensis) ^ the 
other the well-known true crocodile (C acutus). 
which recently has been declared an inhabitant 
of the United States. It is only a few years 
since it was found living on the North Amer- 
ican continent, for previous to its discovery in 
southern Florida, its nearest known habitat to 
the United States was the island of Cuba. 

The order of lizards is separated into families. 
The family to which the alligators, crocodiles, 
and gavials belong, is called by naturalists Cro- 
CODiLO. The distinctions which govern the 
separation of the family Crocodilo into the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 303 

three genera of alligators, crocodiles, and gavials, 
consist of peculiarities in the shape of the head, 
in the peculiar arrangement of the teeth, \vebbing 
of the feet, and in some minor characteristics; 
for, outside of these not very important anatom- 
ical differences, the habits of the three kinds of 
reptiles are in most respects quite similar, some 
of the species being more ferocious, and conse- 
quently more dangerous, than others. 

The alligator, also called caiman by the Span- 
ish-American Creoles, inhabits the rivers and 
bayous of the North and South American conti- 
nents, while the crocodiles are natives of Africa, 
of the West Indies, and of South America. The 
fierce gavial genus is Asian, and abounds in the 
rivers of India. The alligatoi (^A. jMississippien- 
sis) and the crocodile ( C. acictiis) are the only 
species which particularly interest the people of 
the United States, for they both belong to our 
own fauna. 

Our alligator inhabits the rivers and swampy 
districts of the southern states. I have never 
heard of their being found north of the Neuse 
River, though they probably ascend in small 
numbers some of the numerous rivers and creeks 
of the northern side of Albemarle Sound in 
North Carolina. The bayous and swamps of 
Louisiana and the low districts of Florida are 
particularly infested with these animals. The 
frequent visits of man to their haunts makes them 



304 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

timid of his presence; but where he is rarely or 
never seen, the larger alligators become more 
dangerous. During warm, sunny days this rep- 
tile delights in basking in the sunlight upon the 
bank of a stream for hours at a time. At the 
approach of man he crawls or slides from his 
slimy bed into the water, but if his retreat be 
cut off, or he become excited, a powerful odor of 
musk exudes from his body. During the winter 
months he hibernates in the mud of the bayous 
for days and weeks at a time. When the alii- 
gator enters the water, a pair of lips or valves 
close tightly, hermetically sealing his ears so that 
even moisture cannot penetrate them. His nos- 
trils arc protected in the same w^ay. 

As the season for incubation approaches, the 
female searches for a sandy spot, and digging a 
hole with her fore-feet, deposits there her eggs, 
which are somewhat smaller than those of a 
goose. They are usually placed in layers, care- 
fully covered up in the sand, and if not disturbed 
by wild animals, are hatched by the heat of the 
sun. It frequently happens that .the alligator 
cannot find a sand-bank in which to place her 
eggs, and on such occasions she scrapes together 
with her fore-feet grass, leaves, bark, and sticks, 
mixed with mud, and converting the whole into 
a low platform, deposits the eggs upon it in sep- 
arate layers, each la3xr being sandwiched with 
the mixture of mud, sticks, &c., until more than 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 305 

one hundred white eggs, of a faint green tint, are 
carefully stowed away in the nest. 

The exterior of the nest, which has a mound- 
like character, is daubed over with mud, the tail 
of the alligator being used as a trowel. The first 
duties of maternity being over, the female alliga- 
tor acts as policeman until the eggs are hatched. 
Her office is not a sinecure, for the fowls of the 
air, and the creeping things upon earth, are at- 
tracted to the entombed delicacies secreted in this 
oven-like structure in the swamp. Many a luck- 
less coon and cracker's pig searching for a break- 
fast, receive instead a blow from the strong tail 
of the female alligator, and are swept into the 
grasp of her terrible and relentless jaws. 

Moisture and heat act their parts in assisting 
the process of incubation, and the little alliga- 
tors, a few inches in length, issue from the shell, 
and are welcomed by their mail-clad mother into 
the new world. 

Like young turtles just from the shell, the baby 
alligators make for the v/ater, but unlike the 
young of the sea-turtles, the saurians have the 
assistance of their parent, who not unfrequently 
takes a load of them upon her back. From the 
first inception of nest-building until the young 
are able to take care of themselves, this reptile 
mother, like the female wild-turkey, resists the 
encroachments of her mate who would devour, 
not only the eggs, but his own crawling children. 
20 



3o6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

In fact, if opportunity were offered by the absence 
of the mother from the nest and the young, his 
alligatorship would eat up all his progeny, and 
exterminate his species, without a particle of re- 
gret. He has no pride in the perpetuation of his 
famil}^, and it is to the maternal instincts of his 
good wife that we owe the preservation of the 
allio^ator. 

The young avoid the larger males until they 
are strong enough to protect themselves, feeding 
in the mean time upon fish and flesh of every de- 
scription. In the water the}' move with agility, 
but on land their long bodies and short legs pre- 
vent rapid motion. They migrate during droughts 
from one slough or bayou to another, crossing the 
intervening upland. When discovered on these 
journeys by man, the alligator feigns death, or at 
least appears to be in an unconscious state; but 
if an antagonist approach within reach of that 
terrible tail, a blow, a sweep, and a snapping to- 
gether of the jaws prove conclusively his danger- 
ous character. Pie is a good fisherman, and can 
also catch ducks, drawing them by their feet 
under water. The dog is, however, the favorite 
diet of these saurians, and the negroes make use 
of a crying puppy to allure the creature from the 
bottom of a shoal bayou within reach of their 
guns. 

Though clad in a coat of thick, bony scales, 
a well-directed charge of buckshot from a gun, 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 307 

or a lead ball from a musket, will penetrate the 
body, notwithstanding all that has been said to 
the contrary. 

The negroes in the Gulf states say that " de 
'gators swallows a pine knot afore dey goes into 
de mud-burrows for de winter;" and the fact 
that pine knots and pieces of wood are found 
in the stomachs of these animals at all seasons 
of the year, gives a shade of truth to this state- 
ment. Even the hardest substances, such as 
stones and broken bottles, are taken in consider- 
able quantities from the bodies of dead alligators. 
Their digestive organs are certainly not sensitive, 
their nervous systems not delicate, and their in- 
telligence not remarkable. It gives an alligator 
but little inconvenience to shoot off a portion of 
his head with a mass of the brain attached to it; 
and they have been known to fight for hours with 
the entire brain removed. 

Though generally fleeing from man upon terra 
firma^ the alligator will quickly attack him in the 
water. A friend of mine, mounted upon his 
horse, was crossing a Florida river in the w^ilder- 
ness, when entering the channel of the stream, 
the horse's feet did not touch the bottom, and he 
swam for a moment or two, struggling with the 
current. My friend suddenly felt a severe grip 
upon his leg, and the pressure of sharp teeth 
through his trousers, when, realizing in a flash 
that an alligator's jaws were fastened upon him, 



3o8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

he clasped the neck of his horse with all his 
strength. For a few seconds he was in danger 
of being dragged from the back of his faithful 
animal; but his dog, following in the rear, gained 
quickly on the struggling horse, and the alliga- 
tor, true to his well-known taste, loosed his hold 
upon the man, and catching the dog in his strong 
jaws, dragged the poor brute to the bottom of the 
river. 

The alligator is fast disappearing from our 
principal southern rivers, and is also being cap- 
tured in considerable numbers in isolated bayous 
by hunters, who kill the creature for his hide, as 
the alligator boots have a durability not possessed 
by any other leather. 

There is much interest connected with the 
discovery of the existence of the true crocodile 
(C acutus) in the Floridian peninsula. While 
the alligators have broader heads, shorter snouts, 
and more numerous teeth than the crocodiles, 
the unscientific hunter can at once identify the 
true crocodile ( C. acutus) by two holes in the 
upper jaw, into which and through which 
the two principal teeth or tushes of the lower 
jaw protrude, and can be seen by looking down 
upon the head of the animal. The longest teeth 
of the alligator do not thus protrude through the 
head or snout, but fit into sockets in the upper 
jaw. I first studied the true crocodile in the 
island of Cuba, where there are two distinct 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 309 

Species of the genus, one of which is our Florida 
species (C acutics). At that time science was 
bHnd to the fact that the true crocodile was a 
member of the fauna of the United States. At 
a meeting of the " Boston Society of Natural 
History," held May 19, 1869, the late compara- 
tive anatomist, Dr. JetTries Wyman, exhibited the 
head of a crocodile (C acutus) which had been 
sent him by William H. Hunt, Esq., of Miami 
River, which stream flows out of the ever- 
glades and empties into Key Biscayene Bay, 
at the south-eastern end of the Floridian penin- 
sula. 

A second cranium of the Sharp-nosed Croco- 
dile was afterwards obtained from the same local- 
ity, but the honor of killing and recognizing one 
of these huge monsters belongs to the young and 
enterprising author of the " Birds of Florida; " a 
work full of original information, the illustrations 
of which, as well as the setting up of the type, 
beings the work of the author's own hands. I 
refer to Mr. C. J. Maynard, of Newtonville, 
Massachusetts, who has furnished me with a 
graphic description of his meeting with, and the 
capture of, the crocodile while engaged in his 
ornithological pursuits during the year 1867. 
Mr. Maynard says: 

" This crocodile is particularly noticeable for 
its fierceness. I have met with it but once. 
Three of us were crossing the country which lies 



3IO FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

between Lake Harney and Indian River, on foot, 
when wc came to a dense swamp. As we \vere 
passing through it we discovered a huge reptile, 
which resembled an alligator, lying in a stream 
just to the right of our path. He was apparently 
asleep. We approached cautiously within ten 
rods of him, and hred two rifle-shots in quick 
succession. The balls took effect in front of his 
fore-leg, and striking within two inches of each 
other, passed entirely through his body. As 
soon as he felt the wounds he struggled violent- 
1}^, twisting and writhing, but finally became 
quiet. 

" We waded in, and approached him as he lay 
upon a bed of green aquatic plants with his head 
towards us. It was resting on the mud, and one 
of the party was about to place his foot upon it, 
when a lively look in the animal's eyes deterred 
him. Stooping down, he picked up a floating 
branch, and lightly threw it in the reptile's face. 
The result was somewhat surprising. The huge 
jaws opened instantly, and the formidable tail 
came round, sweeping the branch into his mouth, 
where it was crushed and ground to atoms by 
the rows of sharp teeth. His eyes flashed fire, 
and he rapidly glided forward. Never did ma- 
gician of Arabian tale conjure a fiercer-looking 
demon by wave of his wand than had been 
raised to life by the motion of a branch. For 
a moment we were too astonished to move. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 31I 

ft 

^^ The huge monster seemed bent on revenge, 
and in another instant would be upon us. We 
then saw our danger, and quicker than a flash of 
light, thought and action came. The next mo- 
ment the gigantic saurian was made to struggle 
on his back with a bullet in his brain. It had 
entered his right eye, and had been aimed so 
nicely as not to cut the lids. 

" To make sure of him this time, we severed 
his jugular vein. While performing this not 
very delicate operation, he thrust out two sin- 
gular-looking glands from slits in his throat. 
They were round, resembling a sea-urchin, being 
covered with minute projections, and were about 
the size of a nutmeg, giving out a strong, musky 
odor. We then took his dimensions, and found 
he was over ten feet in length, while his body 
was larger round than a flour-barrel. The im- 
mense jaws were three feet long, and when 
stretched open would readily take in the body 
of a man. They were armed with rows of sharp, 
white teeth. The tusks of the lower one, when 
it was closed, projected out through two holes 
in the upper, which fact proved to us that it was 
not a common alligator, but a true crocodile 
(C aciitus)r 

If Mr. Maynard had been at that time aware 
of the value of the prize he had captured, the 
market-price of which was some four or five 
hundred dollars, he would not have abandoned 



312 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

his crocodile. He afterwards sent for its head, 
but could not obtain it. This reptile will prob- 
ably be found more numerous about the head- 
waters of the Miami River than further north. 
It sometimes attains a length of seventeen feet. 
Since Mr. Maynard shot his crocodile, others 
from the north have searched for the C acittus^ 
and one naturalist from Rochester, New York, 
captured a specimen, and attempted to make a 
new species of it by giving it the specific name 
of Floridanas, in place of the older one of C 
aciitiis. 

The morning sun was shining brightly as I 
pulled steadily along the coast, passing Warrior 
Creek six miles from my starting-point off the 
shores of Spring Creek. About this locality the 
rocky bottom was exchanged for one of sand. 
Having rowed eleven miles, a small sandy is- 
land, one-third of a mile from shore, offered a 
resting-place at noon; and there I dined upon 
bread and cold canned beef. A mile further to 
the eastward a sandy point of the marsh extended 
into the Gulf. A dozen oaks, two palmettos, and 
a shanty in ruins, upon this bleak territory, were 
the distinctive features which marked it as Jug 
Island, though the firm ground is only an island 
rising out of the marshes. Sandy points jutting 
from the lowlands became more numerous as I 
progressed on my route. Four miles from Jug 
Island the wide debouchure of Blue Creek came 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 313 

into view, with an unoccupied fishing-shanty on 
each side of its mouth. 

Crossing at dusk to the east shore of the creek, 
I landed in shoal water on a sandy strand, when 
the wind arose to a tempest, driving the water 
on to the land; and had it not been for my 
watch-tackle, the little duck-boat must have 
sought other quarters. As it was, she was soon 
high and dry on a beach; and once beneath her 
sheltering hatch, I slept soundly, regardless of 
the screeching winds and dashing seas around 
me. 

Before the sun had gilded the waters the next 
morning, the wind subsided, my breakfast was 
cooked and eaten, and the boat's prow pointed 
towards the desolate, almost uninhabited, wil- 
derness of Deadman's Bay. The low tide an- 
noyed me somewhat, but when the wind arose 
it was fair, and assisted all day in my progress. 
The marine grasses, upon which the turtles feed, 
covered the bottom; and many curious forms 
were movino: about it in the clear water* Six 
miles from Blue Creek I found a low grassy 
island of several acres in extent, and while in 
its vicinity frequently grounded; but as the water 
was shoal, it was an easy matter to jump over- 
board and push the lightened boat over the 
reefs. 

About noon the wind freshened, and forced 
me nearer to the shore. As I crossed channel- 



314 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

ways, between shoals, the porpoises, w^hich were 
pursuing their prey, frequently got aground, and 
presented a curious appearance working their 
way over a submarine ridge by turning on their 
sides and squirming like eels. By two o'clock 
p. M., the wind forced me into the bight of Dead- 
man's Bay. The gusts ^vere so furious that pru- 
dence demanded a camp, and it was eagerly 
sought for in the region of ominous name and 
gloomy associations. I had been told that there 
was but one living man in this bay, which is 
more than twenty miles wide. This settler lived 
two miles up the Steinhatchee River, Avhich 
flows into the bight of Deadman's Bay. 

In a certain part of the wilderness of this re- 
gion a tract of savanna and pine lands approached 
near to the waters of the Gulf, and w^as known 
as the " Devil's Wood Pile." Superstition has 
made this much-dreaded forest the scene of 'wdld 
and horrible tales. Fishermen had warned me 
of its dismal shades, and of the wild cattle which 
roamed unheeded through its dreary recesses. 
Hunters, they said, had entered it in strong force, 
but the wild bulls were so fierce that the bravest 
were driven back, and the dangerous task aban- 
doned. Calves had been born in the fastnesses 
of the " Devil's Wood Pile," and had grown old 
without being branded by their owners, who 
feared the sharp horns of the paternal bulls, the 
courageous defenders of their native pastures. 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 315 

Skirting the marshy savannas of His Satanic 
Majesty's earthly dominion, I ascended the Stein- 
hatchee River, when a clearing with a rough 
house and store gave unmistakable signs of the 
proximity of the settler of whom I had heard. I 
was preparing to make my camp near the land- 
ing, when the proprietor made his appearance, 
courteously inviting me to his house, where he 
held me a willing prisoner for three days, giving 
me much information in regard to life in the 
woods. He had been a soldier in the Seminole 
war, and had passed through varied experiences, 
but had "settled down," as he expressed it, to 
the red-cedar business. Six long years had this 
man and his wife delved and toiled in the deso- 
late region of Deadman's Bay, seeing no one 
except a few cedar-cutters from the interior, who 
stocked up at his store before going into the wil- 
derness. 

A o^reat deal of red cedar is cut on the shores 
and in the back country of the Steinhatchee 
River. The squatters and small farmers, called 
crackers^ engaged in this work, are not hampered 
by the eighth commandment, and Uncle Sam has 
to suffer in consequence, most of the timber be- 
ins^ cut on United States o^overnment reserves. 
It finds its wa}^ to the cedar warehouses of mer- 
chants in the town of Cedar Keys. I have seen 
whole rafts of this valuable red cedar towed into 
Cedar Keys and sold there, when the parties 



3l6 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

purchasing knew it to be stolen from the gov- 
ernment lands. My kind host, Mr. James H. 
Stephens, was the first honest purchaser of this 
government cedar I had met, for he cheerfull}^ 
and promptly paid the requisite tax upon it, and 
seemed to be endeavoring to protect the prop- 
erty of the government. 

From Mr. Stephens's hospitable home I pro- 
ceeded along the Gulf, past Rocky Creek, to 
Frog Island, a treeless bit of territory where a 
little shanty had been erected by the Coast Sur- 
vey officers to shelter a tide-gauge watcher. 
The island was now deserted. The coast was 
indeed desolate, and it was a cheering sight in 
the middle of the afternoon to catch a glimpse 
of signs of the past presence of man on Pepper- 
fish Key, an island a little distance from land, 
rising out of the sparkling sea, and crowned 
with a rough but picturesque shanty, — another 
reminder of the untiring efforts of our Coast Sur- 
vey Bureau. 

A prominent point of land near this islet runs 
far into the Gulf, and is known as Bowlegs Point, 
supposed to be named after a chief of the Semi- 
nole Indians, whom I happened to meet man}^ 
years before I saw the point which had the 
honor of bearing his name. Our meeting was 
in a southern city, but I had the misfortune to 
appear on the wrong day, and lost the honor 
of being received by that celebrity, as he had 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 317 

partaken too freely of the hospitality of his white 
friends, and could only utter, " Big Injuin don't 
receive! Big Injuin too much drunk! " 

As night approached I crossed a large bay, 
and entered the very shoal v^ater off Horse Shoe 
Point, close to Horse Shoe and Bird islands. 
These pretty islets were green with palmetto 
and other foliage, while upon the firm land of 
Horse Shoe Point appeared, in the last rays of 
the setting sun, a white sandy strand crowned 
with a palmetto hut and a little white tent. 
Two finely modelled boats rested upon the 
beach, and five miles out to sea was pictured 
upon the horizon, like a phantom ship, the weird 
and indistinct outlines of a United States Coast 
Survey schooner. The tide was on the last of 
the ebb, and finding it impossible to get within 
half a mile of the point, I anchored my little 
craft, built a fire in my bake-kettle, made coffee 
on board, and, quietly turning in for a doze, 
rested until the tide arose, when in the darkness 
I hauled my boat ashore and awaited the " break 

o' day." 

As soon after breakfast as wood-etiquette ad- 
mitted, I joined the party on the beach, and was 
welcomed to their breakfast-table under the 
shelter of their pretty white tent; learning, 
much to my satisfaction, that I was an ex- 
pected guest, as my arrival had been looked 
for some days before. This party from the 



3l8 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

schooner ^^ Ready " was engaged in establishing 
a base-line two miles in length at Horse Shoe 
Point, and was under the charge of Mr. F. Whal- 
ley Perkins, who was assisted by Messrs. John 
De Wolf, R. E. Duvall, Jr., and William S. 
Bond. 

The readers of my ^^ Voyage of the Paper Ca- 
noe " may recognize in Mr. Bond, a member of 
this party, a gentleman whom I had met on 
board the Coast Survey vessel " Casswell," in 
Bull's Bay, on the South Carolina coast, the 
previous winter. Only those w^ho have gone 
through similar experiences can imagine what 
I felt at beino^ thus brouo^ht into contact with 
men of intellio^ence. It was as thouo^h a man 
had been pulling through a heavy fog, and sud- 
denly the sun burst forth in all its glory. Na- 
ture is grand and restful, and green savannas 
and tranquil waters leave fair pictures in our 
memories; but after all, man is eminently a so- 
cial being, and needs companions of his kind. 

My lonely voyage had been so monotonous that 
this return to the society of civilized man had a 
peculiar effect upon my mind, it being in so 
receptive a state that the most minute incident 
w^as noted; and the tent with its surroundings, 
the breakfast-table with its genial hosts, the very 
appearance of the water and the sky, were so in- 
delibly impressed upon m}^ memory that they 
never can be effaced. It is fortunate the pict- 







/;- 






l^f. 


>. 


^ 






"^ 




i* 


■•^ 




i 


^ 


:d 


- 














-- 


>." 


"■•n. 


^ 


^, 


*^ 


'~r. 


:n 


^ 


^ 








■>v 


■"SJ 






^ 


»«J 


•^f 


^ 


i^ 


:i: 


-^ 






■^ 








> 


^ 


h 


; 






^ 


(/) 














^ 






:t> 





( 






i ,0-^ '^I^^.H'^ --■ 



tmmmmmi^mtmammmmmmtmftfm 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 319 

ure is a pleasant one, as in fact were all the 
hours passed with the gentlemen of the schooner 

Ready. 

On Saturday evening the party prepared to 
go on board the Ready; and as I was to pass 
Sunday with them, it was deemed prudent to 
send my boat to a safe anchorage-ground on 
the east side of Horse Shoe Bay, where, moored 
among some islands, my floating home would 
be protected from boisterous seas and covetous 

fishermen. 

Climbing the sides of the Ready, I was filled 
with admiration for the beautiful vessel, the last 
one built especially for the Coast Survey ser- 
vice. The entire craft, with its clean decks and 
well-arranged interior, was a model of order and 
skilful arrangement. The home-like cabin, with 
its books and various souvenirs of the officers, 
was in strange contrast with the close quarters 
of my own little boat. The day was most 
pleasantly passed; and as the morrow threat- 
ened to be windy, Mr. Perkins kindly oflered 
to put me on board the sneak-box before sunset. 
The gig was manned by a stalwart crew ot sail- 
ors, and the chief of the party took the tiller- 
ropes in his hands as we dashed away through 
the waves towards Horse Shoe Bay. 

At four in the afternoon we entered the shel- 
tered waters of a miniature archipelago close to 
the coast, and I beheld with a degree of atfec- 



320 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

tion and satisfaction, experienced only by a boat- 
man, my own little craft floating safely at her 
moorings. The officers gave me a sailor's hearty 
farewell, the boat's crew bent to their oars and 
were soon far in the offing, growing each mo- 
ment more indistinct while I gazed, until a 
white speck, like a gull resting upon the sea, 
was the only visible sign left me of Mr. Perkins 
and his party. 

My voyage of twenty-six hundred miles was 
nearly ended. The beautiful Suwanee River, 
from which I had emerged in my paper canoe 
one 3^ear before, (when I had terminated a 
voyage of twenty-five hundred miles begun in 
the high latitude of Canada,) was only a few 
miles to the eastward. Upon reaching its de- 
bouchure on the Gulf coast, the termini of the 
two voyages would be united. It would be 
only a few hours' pull from the mouth of the 
Suwanee to the port of Cedar Keys, whose 
railroad facilities offered to the boat and her 
captain quick transportation across the penin- 
sula of Florida to Fernandina, on the Atlantic 
coast, where kind friends had prepared for my 
arrival. 

While I gazed upon the smooth sea, a longing 
to pass the night on the dark waters of the river 
of song took possession of me, and mechanically 
■w^eighing anchor, I took up my oars and pulled 
along the coast to my goal. Before sunset, the 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 32 1 

old landmark of the mouth of the Suwanee (the 
iron boiler of a wrecked blockade-runner) ap- 
peared above the shoal water, and I began to 
search for the little hammock, called Bradtord s 
Island, where one year before I had spent my 
last night on the Gulf of Mexico with the Maria 
Theresa," my little paper canoe. Soon it rose 
like a green spot in the desert, the well-remem- 
bered grove coming into view, with the hall- 
dead oak's scraggy branches peering out ot the 
feathery tops of the palmettos. 

Entering the swift current of the river I 
gazed out upon the sea, which was bounded 
only by the distant horizon. The sun was 
slowly sinking into the green of the western 
wilderness. A huge saurian dragged his mail- 
clad body out of the water, and settled qui- 
etly in his oozy bed. The sea glimmered in 
the long, horizontal rays of light which clothed 
it in a sheen of silver and of gold. The wild 
sea-uUs winnowed the air with their wings, as 
the/settled in little flocks upon the smooth water, 
as though to enjoy the bath of soft sunlight that 
came from the west. The great forests behind 
the marshes grew dark as the sun slowly disap- 
peared, while palm-crowned hammocks on the 
savannas stood out in bold relief like islets in a 
sea of green. The sun disappeared, and the soft 
air became heavy with the mists of night as 1 
sank upon my hard bed with a feeling of grati- 



21 



322 



FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 



tude to Him, whose all-protecting arm had been 
with me in sunshine and in storm. 

Lying there under the tender sky, lighted with 
myriads of glittering stars, a soft gleam of light 
stretched like a golden band along the water 
until it was lost in the line of the horizon. Be- 
yond it all was darkness. It seemed to be the 
path I had taken, the course of my faithful boat. 
Back in the darkness were the ice-cakes of the 
Ohio, the various dangers I had encountered. 
All I could see was the band of shining light, 
the bright end of the voyage. 





Last Night on the Gulf of Mexico. 



VOYA&E OF THE PAPER CMOE: 

A GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNEY OF 2500 MILES, FROM QUEBEC TO THE 
GULF OF MEXICO, DURING THE YEARS 1874-5. 

By NATHANIEL H. BISHOP. 

With spirited Illustrations, and Ten Maps specially prepared for this work by the 
U. S. Coast Survey Bureau. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. 

Boston : LEE & SIIEF.A.E,I3, r»u.blislxers. 



American Literary Notices. 

"This is the most novel feat that has ever been performed by an American. The 
whole narrative is a living romance, whose perusal will occasion only delight to every 
reader. It is one of the fascinatmg books of the time, and has all the colors of a dream." 
— Banner of Light. 

" Mr. Bishop has given us a most interesting and instructive book, which we commend 
heartily to the perusal of all. It has the advantage of being true from beginning to end." 

— Catholic World. 

"The whole volume, though entertaining in the extreme, abounds with curious infor- 
mation, which raises it above the character of a mere work of amusement. Mr. Bishop 
is a natural and forcible writer." — Neiu York Tribtiite. 

"Jules Verne, our most startling romancist. has not written any fiction more deeply 
interesting than Mr. Bishop's realistic narrative of personal adventure." — Philadelphia 
Press. 

"Mr. Bishop's is a capital book. He tells his story charmingly." — Hari/ord Courajit. 

"The most pleasing thing to us about this book is the liking it has begotten in us for 
its writer. Mr. Bishojj's book abounds in humor as in other best characteristics ; but we 
should sum up our praise by saying, emphatically, that he knows how to make and to relate 
a manly and gentlemanly journey. It is a book to interest persons of all ages and pursuits." 

— Boston Book Bulletin. 

'"Mr. Bishop's account of his lonely journey is capital reading. The aim of the book 
is not to support any political theory-, but to state what tbe author saw." — Atlatitic 
Monthly. 

Notices from tB^e Press of Great Britain. 

" There arc some capital stories in this book, with a racy American flavor ; and Mr. 
Bishop especially shines in his delineation of the liberated and enfranchised negro." — 
Pall Mall Gazette. 

" Cruises of ' Rob Roy,' or of Nautilus,' seem tame when compared with such en- 
terprises as that recorded in Mr. Bishop's 'Voyage of the Paper Canoe.' One thing 
is certain, Mr. Bishop did a very bold thing, and has described it with a happy mixture 
of spirit, keen observation, zxvd. bonhotnmie." — Graphic. 

" We may say that this voyage is most instructive and amusing, and the first few of the 
maps of the eastern coast of the States are, for their size, the most perfect in detail and 
execution which we have ever met. We cannot close the volume without paying a fitting 
tribute of its worth, by stating that we do not care how soon particulars of his last voyage 
are presented to us." — Latid and Water, 

"This well-known traveller, who, at the age of seventeen, walked one thousand miles 
across South America, and presented the world with a graphic account of his perform- 
ance, now presents us with one of the most interesting works on modern travel and adven- 
ture that it is possible to conceive. Were we to be obliged to name volumes of travel 
equal in interest to ]\Ir. Bishop's, we could only name one, and that is Captain Bumaby's 
'Ride to Khiva.^" — Sporting and Dramatic /Yews. 



THE PAMPAS AND ANDES: 

A THOUSAND MILES' WALK ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA. 

By NATHANIEL H. BISHOP. 

i2mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, $1.50. 

Notices of the Work. 

His Excellency Don Domingo F. Sarmiento, President of the Argentine Confedera- 
tion, South America, in a letter written to the author during 1S77, says : " Your book of 
travels possesses the merit of reality in the faithful descriptions of scenes and customs as 
they existed at that time. 

" It has delighted me to follow you, step by step, by the side of the ancient and pic- 
turesque carts that cross the vast plains which stretch between the Parana River and the 
base of the Andes. As I have written about the same region, your book of travels be- 
comes a valuable reminder of those scenes ; and I shall have to consult your work in the 
future when I again write about those countries." 



"Nathaniel H. Bishop, a mere lad of seventeen, who, prompted by a love of nature, 
starts off from his New England home, reaches the La Plata River, and coolly walks to 
Valparaiso, across Pampa and Cordillera, a distance of more than a thousand miles ! It 
is not the mere fact of i^edestrianism that will gain for Master Nathaniel Bishop a high 
place among travellers ; nor yet the fact of its having been done in the face of dangers 
and difficulties, — but that, throughout the walk, ha has gone with his eyes open, and 
gives us a book, written at seventeen, that will make him renowned at seventy. It is 
teeming with information, both on social and natural subjects, and will take rank among 
books of scientific travel — the only ones worth inquiring for. One chapter from the 
book of an educated traveller (we don't mean the education of Oxford and Cambridge) is 
worth volumes of the stuff usually forming the staple of books of travels. And in this 
impretending book of the Yankee boy — for its preface is signally of this sort — we have 
scores of such chapters. The title is not altogether appropriate. It is called ' A Thou- 
sand Miles' Walk across South America.' It is more than a mere walk. It is an explo- 
ration into the kingdom of Nature. 

" Sir Francis Head has gone over the same ground on horseback, and given us a good 
account of it. But this quiet ' walk ' of the American boy is worth infinitely more than 
the 'Rough Rides' of the British baronet. The one is common talk and superficial 
observation. The other is a study that extends beneath the surface." — Captain Mayne 
Reid. 

" Regarded simply as a piece of adventure, this were interesting, especially when told 
of in a tone of delightful modesty. But the book has other recommendations. This 
boy has an admirable eye for manners, customs, costumes, &c., to say nothing of his 
attention to natural history. The reader seems to travel by his side, and concludes the 
book with a sense of having himself trodden the Pampas, and mingled with their bar- 
barous inhabitants. So far as writing goes, this is the supreme merit of a book of trav- 
els. Let those explore who not only see for themselves, but have the rare ability to lend 
their eyes to others. Mr. Bishop is one of the few who can do this ; the graphic sim- 
plicity of his narrative is above praise* Meanwhile, his personal impression is very 
charming. The quiet patience with which he accepted all the hardships of his position — 
without the slightest parade of patience, however — is beyond measure attractive. But 
the brave youth goes on quietly enduring what was to be borne, and not ever allowing his 
observation to be dulled by the infelicities of his situation." — Boston Commofiwealth, 



BOSTON: LEE & SHEPARD. 
NEW YORK : CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 




t-tyUt^%^X/ 



7 



